It seems it was not Elizabeth alone who returned them, for she wrote that in his last days William had given them into Walsingham’s hands, along with a few cryptic words that she transcribed: “Minuette … tell her … Dominic. Sorry.”
I think Dominic would not grudge me the tears I wept for William at that.
August in the Loire Valley was a succession of sunny days that were a continuous astonishment to the English guests. Minuette took advantage of the weather and spent hours each day in the gardens with Lucette and Carrie. Harrington had made himself useful around the estate, and with France at temporary peace with Spain and refraining from pushing the advantage lost by Norfolk, Renaud was home much of the time. Minuette watched him with his sons, old enough now to be taught the beginnings of swordplay, and remembered Dominic and William testing themselves against each other all the years of childhood. Nicolas was the image of his father in both face and temperament, and at nine years old was already a serious horseman. Seven-year-old Julien had his mother’s happy temperament and a wide streak of mischief that Carrie said knowledgeably was a common trait of second sons.
The boys were too old to be interested in babies, and too young to care about their English guests. But wherever Lucette was, so was Renaud and Nicole’s daughter, Charlotte. The girl was three years old and absolutely enchanted with baby Lucie. Charlotte kept up a constant stream of lisping French babble directed Lucette’s way and today was no exception. While Minuette deadheaded roses, Charlotte informed Lucette that “next summer, when you are big, we shall go to the river for a picnic.”
It was Carrie, who had picked up quite a lot of French this year, who said to Minuette, “Shall we be here next summer?”
She had told Carrie and Harrington of Elizabeth’s letter, and then avoided the subject for weeks. But it had to be broached, and sooner rather than later if they meant to sail home before winter.
Minuette continued removing the brown-spotted and faded roses as she considered her answer. Or, more properly, how to phrase the answer.
“I will not go to London,” she said finally. “But I should like to go home. Lucette is English, and I want her to know her people. And where better than Wynfield?”
She looked at Carrie’s dear, faithful face. “I’ll speak to Renaud. Let Harrington know that we will prepare to cross the Channel in September.”
And though she meant to avoid political entanglements in future, there was one more favour she would ask the new queen: if possible, to discover where Dominic was buried and to have his body reinterred at the old chapel near Wynfield where they had been married.
The first months of Elizabeth’s reign passed swiftly, as she accustomed herself to the trappings of power as well as to the realities. Lord Burghley she named her chancellor, and when Archbishop Cranmer died of causes incident to age in late September, Elizabeth appointed Matthew Parker Archbishop of Canterbury. Parker had been Anne Boleyn’s chaplain during the early years of her marriage and it gave Elizabeth pleasure to bestow a favour. Not that she didn’t expect him to work hard and at her command. He and Burghley between them were busy planning her coronation. Elizabeth had insisted on consulting John Dee as to the date, and at his advice settled upon January 15. Though it was a long stretch to wait, Elizabeth would be glad to leave 1558 behind and begin her official reign in a new year.
It was mid-October when Walsingham asked for a private audience as soon as convenient. He had been out and about through England, no doubt checking with his spies that all was well and keeping abreast of those who protested her succession either because she was a woman or because she was Protestant or both. She expected him to deliver a report on the state of her kingdom, but he had something more personal to say.
“I was approached in the North by Eleanor Percy, lately sister-in-law to the Duke of Norfolk.”
“Don’t tell me Eleanor wished to plead for the duke? She has no feeling for the family she was born into, let alone that of her ill-chosen marriage.”
“No, Your Majesty. She said that she has endeavored to contact you and has heard nothing in reply.”
“If she wants to know what I intend to do about the child of hers that William recognized, she will simply have to wait. Unless she would prefer me to decide immediately that the child will be removed from all contact with her as long as I am paying for her upkeep.”
“It is not the child she spoke of.” Walsingham sounded unusually diffident. Almost hesitant.
“Whatever is it that you cannot say directly, Walsingham?”
“It seems, if she is to be believed, that the late king visited her in Cumbria several times in the last year of his life.”
Elizabeth remembered William’s absences in the North and frowned. “So? She is not claiming another child, is she?”
“No. She is not precisely claiming anything—hinting, rather, no doubt hoping to extract various promises from Your Majesty in return for …” Walsingham shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps in return for nothing.”
“It is not like you to speak so guardedly.”
“With Your Majesty’s permission, I would like to travel to her home in Cumbria and examine matters for myself before I speak further.”
Elizabeth waved her permission. “Please do. I will speak with you on your return.”
In the event, Walsingham did not return. It was Elizabeth who traveled to meet him, despite the fact that it was already November and for no one else would she have set forth on this journey without specific information. But Walsingham had never failed her, and so when he wrote, You will wish to see this for yourself, she believed him.
Perhaps the best part of being queen was not having to explain oneself to all and sundry. Elizabeth gave her orders, left Burghley to run things in London, and rode the long way north to Cumbria. She took her time, visiting overnight with several noble families, and arrived at the windswept, desolate, absolutely depressing Lakehill House on a grim November afternoon.
Walsingham met her in the hall. “Mistress Percy has been sent to Kenilworth with the Howard family,” he told her. “I thought it best when I discovered the secret she’d been keeping at the king’s behest.”
“William had her keeping secrets? I would have thought Eleanor incapable of discretion.”
“Not where her own interests are concerned. I can show you the cell below where he was kept later, but for now he is in the family wing. He likes open windows and open doors, and I cannot say I blame him.”
“Who?”
But Walsingham would not say. Growing impatient, Elizabeth followed him through the hall and up the stairs to a low-roofed corridor off which several doors opened. The one at the far end was not shut. Walsingham rapped lightly on the door frame and then stepped back to allow Elizabeth entry.
A man sat with his back to her, looking out the window onto the bleak landscape beyond. For a moment she thought the man hadn’t heard her entrance, but then he turned his head and Elizabeth felt herself spin into dizziness.
Gaunt and shadowed, his black hair cropped ruthlessly short and more heavily bearded than he’d ever been, but unmistakably Dominic Courtenay.
He looked at her without interest, perhaps even without recognition, while Elizabeth’s mind put together the pieces of the past shaken loose into a new picture. Robert had attended his execution, but Dominic had been beaten, she remembered. And blindfolded. And his tongue had been cut out so that he—or someone else—might not speak.
William had gone to great lengths to spirit Dominic away privately to a hell of his own imagining.
A harsh voice came from him, hardly recognizable in tone or attitude. “Now will someone tell me what is going on?”
He stood up and faced her, and Elizabeth saw with a jolt to her stomach that his left hand was gone, the arm ending in a neatly bandaged square of cream linen. What had William done?
But before she could speak, Walsingham said behind her, “Your Majesty—”
“Majesty?” Dominic interr
upted, and narrowed his eyes. “What does he mean?”
Feeling more vulnerable than she had in many months, Elizabeth met Dominic’s emerald-green gaze and said, “The king is dead.”
She didn’t know what reaction she expected, but it wasn’t the bitter laughter that ensued. With a bow that was half mocking, half savage, Dominic said, “Long live the queen.”
Dominic was glad enough to leave Lakehill House, though “glad” was a strong word for an emotion that was muffled and distant. It had been hard enough to adjust to being pulled out of his prison cell by Walsingham, told only that Eleanor was gone and he was safe … to have Elizabeth appear and discover that she was queen and William was dead was almost more than his mind could take.
Was it comedy, he wondered, or tragedy—that he lived and the king was dead? Dominic didn’t know how to feel about any of it … except that his hand ached. The left hand. The one the promised ax had struck off rather than his head. Dominic knew enough of events from Walsingham to be certain the taking of his hand had been Eleanor’s idea, after William’s death.
As he rode south from Cumbria in a closed carriage with Elizabeth, Dominic wondered why Eleanor had not simply killed him. But he knew the answer to that—Eleanor might be vengeful but she was also a survivor. She would not have risked Elizabeth discovering that she had killed a man once held dear by the new Crown. Probably she had tried to blame the loss of Dominic’s hand on William as well.
And why not? Dominic thought savagely. William so thoroughly stripped me of everything that mattered—might as well hate him for the loss of my hand as well.
Except, even now, he couldn’t quite hate William. Fury, yes. A desire to beat William as thoroughly as the king had battered him. A wish to have William at his feet, begging for mercy … even now, Dominic’s instinct would be for mercy.
If it were not for Minuette. Her death was the one blow Dominic could never forgive his friend. Surely this was why William had left him alive—to be eaten up by guilt and grief until death would be a sought-after release. Just like a king. Leaving me to finish his dirty work.
Three days out of Cumbria, Dominic finally asked, “Where are we going?”
“Where would you like to go?”
To the past … “Where is she buried?” he asked abruptly. “At the Tower?”
There was a long, fraught silence. Then Elizabeth said, “No, she is returned to Wynfield Mote.”
“Then I will go to Wynfield.”
The next day, after more long hours of silence, Elizabeth asked him, “Why do you think Walsingham didn’t tell you about William’s death when he found you? And didn’t tell me that you were alive until I saw with my own eyes?”
Dominic shrugged, uninterested.
“I think maybe he wanted the pleasure of seeing my face when we both learned the truth.”
The last day’s approach to Wynfield was exquisitely painful, for Dominic knew every mile of that road. He knew that there were things he needed to ask and to do. Did Minuette’s son truly live? Was he in Elizabeth’s keeping? But all Dominic could think of was lying down next to his wife’s grave and allowing himself to finally rest.
He saw the evidence of building where new cottages had been erected in stone and thatch. The fields had been turned over for winter, ready for new planting next spring. Elizabeth had done her best to restore the damage her brother had wrought here.
And the house itself … the walls were the same, a few streaks still showing where smoke had left its mark, but the roof was rebuilt and the moat filled. Dominic closed his eyes and remembered riding in here another November, three years ago today.
Our wedding day, Dominic … one body and two souls … for to deserve everlasting life, whatsoever that they have done here before.
It had been far easier to return than Minuette had feared. Lucette had adored the crossing of the Channel, wailing when taken below and burbling with delight on deck with the sea and sky surrounding her. Renaud had accompanied them to the French coast, and offered Minuette a final hug and word of advice.
“To live for your daughter is a fine thing. But you are very young as yet, and to live for yourself also would not be a sin.”
“And would you live for yourself if Nicole were gone?” she asked.
With that ineffable French shrug, Renaud answered, “Who can say? Farewell, Madame Courtenay. May your life be long and happy.”
Returning to Wynfield was mostly happy, for Elizabeth had extended herself and the estate cottages were tidy and snug and already half filled. Some of the families burnt out the previous year had gone elsewhere, to family or London, but Minuette discovered that the surrounding community had done much to care for those left behind. Emma Hadley, Alyce de Clare’s sister, who had always treated Minuette with mingled envy and dislike, had provided house room and work for a widow and her young children, and Wynfield’s steward, Asherton, had remained in the area determined to put things right as soon as he could.
It was almost a relief that the interior of the house was new, for it felt as though it were a place for her and Lucette to move forward rather than looking back. But still Minuette rejected the larger space of her parents’ former bedchamber for her own smaller one where she and Dominic had always lain together.
On November 17, Minuette was in her mother’s rose garden with Carrie and Lucette. Some of the rosebushes had not survived the heat of the fires, but new roots had been planted alongside a few hardy remnants of the original garden. The two women were entertaining themselves with the child’s first faltering attempts to walk. She could stand nearly steady as long as she held onto someone’s fingers, but she was so plump that her balance was all wrong every time she took a step. Minuette supposed it wasn’t very kind to laugh so joyously whenever Lucette sat sharply down, but her creased frown of indignation was delicious.
She and Carrie were laughing when she heard horses approaching, and a few moments later, Harrington’s deep voice called out, “Royal standard.”
Crimson and azure, lions and lilies … time spun through memories but swiftly righted itself. “Her Majesty,” Minuette said. “This is unexpected. Carrie, alert Mistress Holly as gently as possible. I don’t want my housekeeper dropping dead of shock.”
She scooped Lucette into her arms and waited at the edge of the roses, not inclined to welcome the queen too warmly until she knew what was wanted. She was a little surprised that Elizabeth came in a carriage rather than on horseback, but her friend appeared perfectly upright and healthy when she was handed out of the interior. Elizabeth had always dressed well, but there was something indefinably weightier about her deep-red gown and ivory kirtle that better suited a queen than a mere princess. The intricate coils of her red-gold hair were another symbol of position, as though Elizabeth were using her body itself to proclaim her status.
Elizabeth nodded in greeting but did not move toward her friend, and Minuette was just thinking crossly that really, standing on one’s dignity could go too far, when a man stepped out of the carriage behind Elizabeth.
She would have known him in her sleep, or her dreams, from his scent alone, or the quality of his stillness, or the sharp line of his jaw. Only when Lucette let out an aggrieved wail did Minuette realize she was squeezing the breath out of both of them.
“Dominic,” she whispered, and in the way he stood, she realized that he was as shocked as she was.
And then they moved, both at once, and Minuette knew that she had finally, absolutely, come home.
17 November 1558
Wynfield Mote
Dominic is sleeping, truly resting for the first time in more than a year. He did not want to close his eyes, for fear I would vanish, but I promised him I would stay awake and watch for both our sakes. He is stretched out in the bed behind me, and so I write this at an awkward angle that I may not lose sight of him.
I did not know until today that joy could be nearly as terrifying as grief. But I survived the grief … we shall survive the
joy. Dominic was so dazed at first that I had to tell him three times that Lucette was a girl before he quite grasped it. If I’d ever harbored a doubt that Dominic would not be able to love a child of whose birth he was uncertain, it vanished the moment he took Lucie in his arms and stared at her as though she were the most marvelous creation God had ever granted.
And now I understand those broken words of William’s that were passed to me across the sea. “Minuette … tell her … Dominic.” As he died, William wanted me to know that Dominic still lived. “Sorry,” he said.
I forgive you, Will.
And thank you for my husband.
Elizabeth stayed one night at Wynfield, a matter of hours in which Minuette despaired of Mistress Holly’s nerves. But Elizabeth, like her brother, had a gift with the common people that set them at ease and made them love her. Perhaps almost worship her.
Minuette rose alone to bid Elizabeth farewell at dawn. Without Dominic to care for in his uncertain state of health, Elizabeth would ride rather than take the carriage. Minuette embraced her in the courtyard. “Thank you,” she said with all the fervor of her grateful soul.
With a gaze that took in the building work around them, Elizabeth asked, “I trust you are content with the work done here?”
“You have been very generous.”
“And if I were to ask you for something in return?”
“It would depend on what was asked.”
“I could use good men and women at my court.”
Minuette was silent as she chose carefully each word of her response. “You will be a wonderful queen, Elizabeth, and I will never be able to thank you for my own safety and Dominic’s return. But we are finished with royalty and courts.”
Her friend smiled ruefully, as though she’d known the answer. “May I at least crave your presence at the coronation? I do not think I can take those vows without my dearest friend to anchor me. You are all I have left, Minuette.”
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