I closed my eyes before steadying my gaze on hers again. “There is nothing to question. I am a virgin, Lady Prioress.”
“Do you intend to encourage him?”
“No. I wish to become a nun.”
“Still?”
I should not have been rankled by her surprise, yet it was so. I lowered my eyes again in an attempt to regain composure. “Yes, Madam. It is my whole desire.”
“Why did you never come to me?”
“I…could not.”
“But it is incumbent upon each of us to look into ourselves, to find our faults, and purge them for the betterment of our souls. Can you not do this?”
“It is difficult, Madam.”
“It is more difficult living this life with true honesty.”
“Yes. I see that. Forgive me, Madam.”
“What will you do should Lord Giffard return?”
“I will have no words for him.”
“Then we shall put this to the test. For he is here.”
The sound I uttered was strangled, for I thought the jest cruel, more the doings of Cristabell. But the prioress persisted, until I realized that it was no jest. “Oh, Madam! What shall we do?”
“We? It is for you, Isabella, to decide what to do. Will you see him?”
“No, Madam! You should forbid it!”
“And if I do not?” Her face was smooth, but the set of her brows proclaimed her misgivings.
“You wish for me to see him, then?”
“I do. Only then—facing your demons, Isabella—can you come to your vows with any hope of truth. We are not building straw manikins in habits. We are fashioning God’s handmaids. Not of impenetrable marble, but of human flesh, with human flaws and sins. You cannot hide here, for the world intrudes regardless. I will not have this place be a haven from the world. Rather, it is a place to come to when the world’s hold has loosened from you.”
I squeezed my hands, wringing them red. “I am not strong enough,” I whispered.
“I think you are. There is a woman of character behind those somber eyes. Your blunt way with honesty attests to that. Go to him. But know that my solemn prayers are with you, guiding you.”
I stood unsteadily. I was to be sent to the lion’s den. I could not help but feel Prioress Margaret’s confidence in me was overstated.
Turning gravely on my heel, I walked from her parlor down the stairs and through the long gallery to the cloister door.
Thomas paced in the cloister garden, just as he was wont to do at my father’s farm. All merriment was gone from his person, a figure that lived for merriment. He did not yet see me, and so I gazed upon him in all his rich velvet grandeur. Riches beyond my humble understanding adorned him. We could have clothed all the nuns on the sale from one of his rings alone. What was such a man doing tempted by the likes of me? What did I do to encourage this? The fault must be mine.
I whispered his name. Immediately he turned to me, and like any courtier, he fell upon his knee, grasped my hand, and pressed his precious lips to it. How my skin burned from his touch! I pulled it free, rubbing the pain away. “Why are you here, Lord Thomas?”
Slowly he rose, his head still dejectedly bent. “I tried to stay away. I knew that the only consequence of our being together meant that I should lead you into sin. I could tempt you to it. I know that.” He raised saddened eyes. There was a ghost of a smile at the edge of his mouth, framed by that dark beard.
Oh yes. He could, indeed. He had only to take me in his arms again.
“Yet each time I considered it,” he continued, his gloved hand raised to his chest as if pressing on the pain of his heart, “I knew also how bitter you would come to be, and how much you would someday despise >me for it. You see, I know you better than you think.” Then he smiled, but there was bitterness and anguish there. And maturity. Thomas had become a man before my eyes, but it was a rueful confirmation. “Because
I love you, I will see to it that you…and your sisters here…fare well. It means also that I may visit you from time to time.”
“In the cloister, Thomas? How is it allowed?”
“Your prioress. She is a very pragmatic woman.”
“You paid your way.” I turned my back on him, but it was a mistake, for he took the opportunity to grasp my shoulders. The fingers curled, pressing into my flesh.
“How often have you chastised me for not knowing my place?” he rasped, close to my cheek. “Well I know it now, Isabella. There are privileges with rank, and I will take them.” He moved closer, his lips just touching the veil at my ear. “Do not mistake me. If there were a way to take you from here without sin, I would do it. Perhaps someday there will be. I can wait.” His fingers tightened for only a moment before releasing me, and he stepped back. He brushed his gown to straighten it, and tautly pulled his gloves. “Will…will I be welcomed should I return?”
“Thomas… I do not know how to reply to you…”
“I will come again. Unless you say me nay. But for the love of the living God, Isabella. Do not say ‘no’.”
“To what purpose, Thomas? I tell you it is not good for you, or for me.”
“To see you. To know how you fare. And if for nothing else, then it can be our own personal purgatory.”
It was my first smile upon seeing him. It felt very much like the old days on my father’s grange. But then that, too, was fleeting. I sighed and shrugged, couching my hands within one another. “Was there ever a counselor as abused as I? Never did you take my advice.”
“Never?” He turned to me, distant but reaching for the kind of camaraderie that was once our stamp. “Oh, surely I must have taken it once or twice.”
“Perhaps.”
A spray of rosemary stood between us, no more than the length of a man’s arm. Thomas gazed at me for a long span before dropping his eyes to the herb. He stooped and snapped a stem, touching the fragrant sprig to his nose. “Rosemary is for remembrance,” he said, and then he glanced to the roses that ringed the little garden courtyard. “And those are you,” he said gesturing toward the roses with the rosemary. He turned to me one last time and bowed. He tucked the rosemary into the slash of his doublet and walked sedately from the garden.
I did not weep as he left, for he promised to come again, and in that lay comfort, for we were good friends. I was also pleased I did not succumb to him, nor did he force me to. I was very pleased with Thomas for that grace.
With a sigh I pushed my skirts aside to go, spying the prioress in the shadows of the cloister. I inclined my head to her, and she to me in answer. Such a wise woman was Prioress Margaret. I only hoped I could achieve her wisdom in the time allotted to me on this earth.
THOMAS GIFFARD
FEBRUARY, 1521
Greenwich Court
XII
“What family of citizens offers so clear an example
of strict harmonious wedlock?”
–Erasmus on the English Court’s Royal couple, 1520
My father made his mark at court, and I, too, served as a Gentleman Ushers in Ordinary to the king’s household. His majesty favored us with offices of respect. It was not forgotten how my father held the king’s standard in the wars in France, nor how he was one of the many knights deputed to meet the French king on the Field of the Cloth of Gold only last year.
The king fancied clever men who knew how to make an honest fortune, and with my having married the king’s ward—a Montgomery—I was wealthy without ill favoring myself. I was satisfied with the knowledge of that wealth, giving a nod to Father and all his plotting. I would have been an unhappy man as a pauper and wed to the farmer’s daughter. But never far from my thoughts was Dame Isabella, as she was now called, sweeping down the drafty halls of Blackladies in her black nun’s weeds. My feelings for her, despite my reconciling to my place, did not cool as I had hoped they might. But I took George Throckmorton’s advice, and attended to my wife, and there I cobbled a marriage of it, the equal of any courtier I knew.
> Dorothy was with the ladies in another gallery—praise God. All the chattering and giggling preyed on one’s nerves, and there was work to do. Court was a pleasure of course, but its purpose was more for what could be gained than reacquainting oneself with old friends. True, old alliances were remembered, old ties rebound. And there were amusements in between these toils. It was a place bright with gold, pomp, music, and disguisings.
King Henry was a man who devoured amusements, be they feasts, or wardrobe, or masques, or women. He enjoyed the company of many a charming lady. My sisters Cassandra and Dorothy stuck close to their husbands while at court, though they did not often attend. It was a place for Father and me to make ourselves available should any important appointments be offered.
My daughter Elizabeth was holding her own court back home at Caverswall. A dainty creature at five years, she was nevertheless robust, and tried the patience of her nurses. At present, she was my only progeny. I cooled to my wife’s attentions after discovering where Isabella resided…and of my feelings for her.
Dorothy had been with child one time more, but the babe was cast out of the womb far too early, and died. It was a boy. Such was also the fate of our king, for the good queen delivered at last a living babe, but it was a girl, the Princess Mary. She was nearly the same age now as my Elizabeth, and such a cheerful child. The king often referred to her as his “pearl of the world.” The last time the queen was pregnant was three years ago, and no more were likely. It seemed our “pearl of the world” would be reigning queen after Henry. He said as much to the Emperor’s envoy. The last reigning queen in England was the Empress Matilda nearly four hundred years ago, and that sad queen’s history did not readily appeal to our courtiers. After all, when that first King Henry named her his heir, there was civil war, and it was her cousin Stephen who seized the throne.
The nobles were unhappy with this turn of affairs, for history was leaden in us all. The robust king could not seem to produce a legal heir, though he did sire a bastard, Henry Fitzroy, on his mistress Bessie Blount not long after the Princess Mary was born.
“But what is a king to do?” said Philip Draycot in my ear. A courtier some ten years my junior, he became my fast friend through his merry wit and sharp ear for news. I glanced sidelong at him and at that pride of wheat-golden hair that reached in a curled edge to just below his ears. It seemed he could read my thoughts aloud, though it was a subject pressing on everyone’s mind.
“He can beget more bastards and name them to the throne,” I answered, “but I doubt he will keep the bloodline to the throne from his lawful heir, his daughter.”
“A woman on the throne? Have you not always said, Thomas, that there would never be a woman on England’s throne?”
“Well…” I brushed my mustache with a fingertip. “Perhaps I was wrong.”
Draycot laughed into his hand as we both perused the room of gallants and bedecked females. Wolsey was also there, fervently instructing a crony who wore a dark plain gown—a commoner named Thomas Cromwell—while the king watched a musician pluck “As I walked the Wood so Wild” on a lute.
“This is a day worth celebrating,” Draycot said close by me, as others turned to look at us. “A Giffard admit he is wrong!”
“Stranger things have happened, Draycot. When a cardinal can be chancellor, then maids can be queens.”
“Careful when you speak ill of the Church lest you be taken for a Lutherist.”
“I am not a Lutherist. What do I care about the rantings of a German ex-monk? And I speak no ill of the Church, Draycot. Only its envoy.”
“Wolsey sticks in everyone’s teeth like last night’s mutton, but do not let George Throckmorton hear you. You know he often transacts business with Wolsey. Land grants or some such.”
No sooner did I turn my head to look for Throckmorton, than I saw him making his way through the throng toward us.
“Lord Giffard,” he said with a perfunctory bow.
“Lord Throckmorton,” I returned in kind.
“Both your brows are so heavy, you must be speaking of the succession.”
Draycot made an expression of mock chagrin. “Do you mean we are the only ones?”
Throckmorton shook his head with disdain and turned his back on young Draycot. “It is said that the Princess Mary may soon be betrothed to the Emperor.”
“Is she not already betrothed to the Dauphin?” asked Draycot, not in the least offended by Throckmorton’s contumelious treatment of him.
“Betrothals are like games of cards,” offered Throckmorton, instructing. His eyes glanced here and there about the room, cautious of heads cocked our way. “One jack after another is discarded for a higher hand.”
“The Princess Mary is the hope of the realm,” I said. “If not as heir, then as mother to the heir.”
Throckmorton nodded. “Yes, that may be the way. Better the king’s grandson as heir than…others.”
Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham strolled across the hall with his attendants, his attention strictly on the king at his gaming table.
“And there goes the ‘other’,” whispered Draycot between us.
“He has made certain of his royal claims,” said Throckmorton. “He now has York blood with his son married to Ursula Pole. I think he makes crowned heads uneasy.”
“He is too ambitious for his own good,” I agreed, smiling only a swath of teeth at an acquaintance nodding at me from across the room.
“He does not forget slights easily,” said Throckmorton. “Thomas and I were young at the time,” he said to Draycot, “but no doubt you have still heard of the occasion when the king had his…indiscretions…with Buckingham’s married sisters.”
“Yes. I recall talk of it.”
I pivoted to watch the king’s dice game. “Buckingham defended the honor of his none-too-chaste siblings and never forgave William Compton for acting as pimp to the king’s pleasure,” I said.
Draycot nodded and swept his gown hem aside to place a fist at his hip. “Buckingham has no liking for commoners, even when they are the king’s bosom friends like Compton. Or Wolsey.”
Throckmorton sniffed. “Nevertheless. He never forgot how unwelcome he was at court after the incident. Though it was ten years ago.”
“Memory runs long at court,” said I.
“I would keep clear of Buckingham,” said Draycot soberly. “I fear he thinks too much of himself in these uncertain days. He listens too dear to his friends who would set him in high places.”
“Too high,” I agreed.
Draycot talked on, but I listened very little. A great fire roared in the hearth and the torches burned equally bright. I cocked an ear toward several courtiers my own age standing in a loose circle, discussing their lands and their hopes, while other young hawks talked of war with France, and fretted at the hilts of their bodkins. I listened to all distractedly even as the musician played on, and the king gathered his fellows over the dice table: his brother-in-law Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and Edward Neville, among them.
I, too, was thinking about what I should do with my life; about when I would be knighted; about the estates. I was fit for all of it, of that I did not doubt. It was the timetable that troubled me, for I should like to make something of myself. At thirty, I was getting old, and my career already fell behind that of my father’s. It irked me. Having married well, I knew these things would soon accelerate. A male heir was the first step, after all, to a dynasty. Yet even so.
I looked, and also saw the queen at the other side of the hall, surrounded by her own pleasures and ladies. How weary she looked. How old. Yet she was barely older than myself. Never a robust lady, the years and her many unsuccessful pregnancies must have taken their toll.
It suddenly occurred to me that there was one more option for the king’s heir: his widowerhood. When Catherine died, he could marry again and yet father a legal male heir.
Was it a good thing to contemplate the death of a queen…or of a wife?
> I turned to the ladies’ gallery to spy Dorothy laughing and chatting with her many contemporaries. Was I to leave my estates in no better claim than the doomed Montgomery’s, awaiting the Giffard buzzards to swoop in and pick their bones clean? Leaving my estates to a woman, where any jack could come along…
Frustrated, I rasped a sigh. The idea of Dorothy in my bed while Isabella dwelled nearby in that convent was a cold winter to my desired summer.
The king won at his game and roared his approval, echoed by the surrounding courtiers. The king’s fiery red beard set off the roundness of his face, giving it a merry mien when he laughed, and an equally fierce countenance when he angered. He grew the beard in an obstinate avowal. He would not shave, he said, until he met the king of France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, but he kept it ever after, pleased with its added maturity. It was said the queen did not favor it, but Henry was a man of his own convictions.
His courtiers laughed again at one of the king’s jests, and it occurred to me to become part of the fawning milieu, until I reckoned the many faces already occupied with such. I could not bring myself to become part of that. I would prefer to accompany the king on a battlefield and earn my knighthood rightly by toils rather than by obsequious expressions of false flattery.
Buckingham maneuvered his way beside him, and rolled his dice upon the gaming table but was foolhardy enough to win, and this did not please the king, who growled and reluctantly handed over his gold pieces. I looked quickly at Draycot and Throckmorton and wondered if Buckingham possessed a wit of common sense to lose. Again, he cast his dice with care, and won another two gold pieces from the king. Praise God Neville stepped in and nudged Buckingham none too graciously aside, letting Henry win again, but not too obviously.
“That is how to keep your head,” hissed Throckmorton in my ear.
“I do not think the king would behead a man simply for besting him at dice,” I answered. “But see how sour Buckingham is. Do you think he will make a fool of himself?” Buckingham was one who believed his ambitions would lead him to a throne. He did not know that much of what he plotted was well known and would someday cast him down. Court was a hazardous place if one did not watch one’s step—or one’s friends.
Roses in the Tempest Page 11