The Crown of Destiny (The Yorkist Saga)

by Diana Rubino

  She skipped in a circle, along the edges of her cramped prison, humming as she did, stretching her arms way up in the air, letting her muscles go free. She stopped in the center of the cell, heart ticking rapidly, and spun round and round, faster and faster, as the dankly lighted window flew by, then the fireplace, then the door, window, fireplace, door, in rapid succession.

  Her head reeled in dizziness, her breath increased, until finally her legs folded and she collapsed, falling through a funnel of blackness until she fell senseless.

  Hampton Court Palace

  They were seated at the dais in the great hall. Dinner had just started when Amethyst's maid of honor rushed in, bustled up to the high table, and whispered in Amethyst's ear, "Lord Gilford is here, Madam. He says he must see you. It is urgent!"

  She met him at the entrance to the palace. He was pacing up and down like a caged lion.

  "Amethyst, I must see the King!" Matthew begged. He grasped her arms and collapsed into her embrace.

  "My God, Matthew! What's happened? What?"

  "My sons! The King has taken the lads to the Tower!"

  "Oh, God, no! When?"

  "Two days... No, three... I don't know! I left as soon as I heard they had been taken, skirting Warwickshire so they wouldn't run into me... They must be here by now! Please, you must let me see my boys!"

  She was scared to death for her nephews and furious at the King. Why would he do this to them? Topaz had received her just desserts, but why take the innocent boys from their father's care?

  "I shall speak with him."

  She led him through the entrance and left him there, running back into the great hall. She approached the dais, glancing at the plates piled with red meats, carrots, squash, and goblets spilling with wine... The whole scene of gluttony made her want to retch. "Your Majesty, I must speak with you!"

  The courtiers took no notice as the King made a big display of excusing himself and exited the great hall with Amethyst.

  They found a dark corner and she faced him. "My lord, you've locked my nephews into the Tower?" To have referred to them as Topaz's sons would have meant certain doom.

  "I had to, love. As a precaution," he said with a wave of his hand, as though the matter were not of the least import.

  "Precaution? Why?"

  "To keep Topaz in line. Worry not, my love. They are quite comfortable, in a spacious suite. They are being waited on by many attendants, and want for nothing."

  "But they are prisoners nonetheless."

  "Political prisoners. Not criminal prisoners," he said with a sigh.

  "As were my father and cousins!" she gasped, despite herself.

  He reached out one hand to comfort her, but his eyes were cold. "Hardly. I am not Richard the Third. I am your Prince Hal and I would never let any harm come to your nephews."

  "Matthew is beside himself."

  "Fetch him then, as we are about to have our meal. We are having..." He began counting on his fingers, "Crayfish, oysters, carp, lampreys, crane, swan, quail, goose, duck, rabbit, lamb, and fruit custard this evening. That will ease his mind."

  Any meal where Henry counted each dish and ran out of fingers always pleased him.

  She swallowed down any further protest she might have made and dipped a curtsey. "Thank you, my liege. You are too kind and generous. And I fear my brother in law is a bit too distraught to want to be amongst company until he can be assured that his sons are safe and well."

  "I understand. Very well, I give you leave to dine in your apartments as you wish, and to see the children when it pleases you."

  "In that case, can they not come here and—"

  He shook his head, his eyes narrowing. "Nay, you have heard my reasons, love. Not that I have to explain myself to anyone, since I am, and shall remain king. I have put them where I see fit, and there is an end to it. And now I want my banquet."

  He strode off without another word, leaving her staring after him and wondering what on earth had changed the handsome, golden-haired man she had once so loved into this corpulent, beady-eyed tormentor.

  Amethyst stepped off the barge that had rowed her down the Thames and passed through the Tower gates. The green was thronged with people, craning their necks to see the scaffold. She hadn't come to see any execution. She'd come to visit the boys as Henry had promised, and would try to see Topaz as well.

  As she threaded her way through the crowd toward the Bell Tower and crossed the courtyard, she stayed at least ten bodies away from the execution site. But as the condemned was being led to the scaffold, the crowd suddenly rushed forward and she was pressed into a tight jumble of bodies, finding herself barely five feet from the scaffold steps. Then a subdued hush swept over the crowd as she turned to see the man dressed in black being led to his death.

  "I pray you, Mr. Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself." The crowd tittered at his poke at humor in the last moments of his life.

  She froze to the spot where she stood and a swell of sickness rose to her throat. The condemned was none other than Sir Thomas More, Henry's Lord Chancellor, Topaz's primary advisor and from what Matthew had told her, her sister's main supporter in her quest for the crown.

  She shoved her way through the crowd, away from the revolting sight of so intelligent a humanist being beheaded, and bolted not into the door of the Queen's House where the boys were being held, but through the entrance of the Bell Tower to where Topaz was being held.

  As she ascended the uneven stone steps, winding to the top in a dizzying spiral, her hand grasping the rough center column for support, she could taste the fetid air and feel its moisture. She would have known where she was even if she'd been blindfolded, for she'd been told of the close confines and stifling mustiness so many, many times.

  Amethyst, only two years old at the time of her father's death, remembered none of it in detail, but the pervasive miasma of the place was unforgettable. Cannon shots boomed around her as she reached the top of the stairs.

  Topaz was sitting, writing, when the guard turned the key and swung the iron bars open to let Amethyst in.

  They did not embrace, though the younger sister would have gladly done so had Topaz not appeared so haughty.

  "You look well enough," Amethyst said into the silence.

  "I am well enough. And I shall exit here alive." She placed her pen down and sat straight up in her chair.

  "No one ever has, and I told you not to do this—"

  "I did it and 'tis done."

  "Thomas More is dead as of but a minute ago."

  Topaz nodded. "Aye, I know. I heard the whole thing. I heard the head fall into the straw basket as well as the deafening cannon shots. My hearing is quite acute."

  "Is that all you have to say?" she whispered in horror.

  "Amethyst, do you love me?"

  She wanted something. Flowers, perhaps? "What kind of stupid question—"

  "Just answer me. Do you love me?"

  Amethyst put her head down. "Of course I love you. You're my sister. But I am so utterly disappointed in you and vehemently hate what you've done... But yes, I love you, in spite of myself."

  "Then will you help get me out of here?"

  She shook her head. "Nay! Never! I shall not follow you up those cold steps, into this room where our father—"

  Topaz cut off her indignant protests with a curt motion of her hand. "I am not asking you to betray your precious king. I am asking you to ask him a favor. I have repented, Amethyst. I am truly sorry for my doings, and I wish to be set free."

  Amethyst had to laugh. Only her sister would have the boldness, the audacity, to even think of such a thing. Not even Anne Boleyn, the supposed 'witch,' walled up beside her, would dare to appeal to the King for her release with such a parcel of nonsense.

  "So did Fisher and More repent, and all the others who betrayed the King. Yet look where they have ended up."

  Topaz shook her head. "More was not sorry. More was all too gla
d to help me."

  "More was Henry's friend and he betrayed him. You have hated Henry all your life. Why all of a sudden are you so full of remorse?"

  "This was not my doing, Amethyst! I was forced into it!" her sister protested.

  Amethyst waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, pish posh! You talked of nothing else, all your life, Topaz, all your damned life! This was your dream, remember, to be queen! Your dream! Who forced you into it?"

  "Our father."

  "What!" Amethyst shook her head. She couldn't be hearing this. "He's been dead for nigh on three decades and you—"

  "I never told anyone this, but his spirit talked to me, all my life, telling me to do this, to carry on his name and regain the crown! I did it, not for the glory of being queen, but for the kingdom! For the poor, for the commoners... And for our family! But I've had all this time, locked up here, allowed to walk nowhere but along the skinny ramparts between here and the Beauchamp Tower. So I've been praying. I've prayed to father, almost every hour of the day, and he spoke to me again, telling me to appeal to the King through you—"

  She could not help but sneer. "Oh, so I'm the royal messenger, then. Funny, Father didn't ask me to do any of the things you have done."

  Topaz sighed. "You never really knew him, Amethyst, the way I did. I've been speaking to him all my life. Now he tells me to repent. Beg the King for his forgiveness. That is why God made you, my sister, the King's closest confidante, so you can appeal to him on my behalf!

  "Of course, the King would never harm you. You're his special one. You are dearer to him than Catherine or Anne were, or even his own daughters! He will listen to you! Please, Amethyst. Tell the King I shall relinquish all my claims to the throne if he lets me go. I shall take my sons home and he will hear from me no more."

  Ah, so that was it. The boys had served just as Henry had predicted they would, to keep her in line and make her realize who really wielded the power in England. "And why should he trust you?" she asked quietly.

  "No traitor has ever appealed to him this way. No traitor has ever repented and admitted his wrongs. More went to the death fighting for his beliefs. Please, sister, tell him I am sorry. Here."

  She handed Amethyst the parchment she'd been writing on. It was her appeal, in writing, relinquishing all her claims to the throne.

  Amethyst looked into her sister's eyes. They were rounder than usual, and brimming with tears.

  "Do you really mean this, Topaz?"

  "I swear on our father's and grandfather's graves. I am asking you to save my life, and that of my children. Please."

  She looked at her bedraggled sister, her eyes pleading with a pathetic quality Amethyst could only discern as genuine. "Very well. I shall give it to him."

  "Oh, Amethyst, thank you! You will not be sorry. The King will not be sorry, the kingdom will be all the better with me helping all my poor souls once more back home."

  It was then that they embraced and she took her leave. After a brief visit to her nephews, she headed back to the palace on the mission her sister had entrusted her with.

  Amethyst sat in the barge gliding up the Thames, completely dumbstruck by the change in her sister. She didn't want to see her sister die. She knew Henry had kept her alive simply out of his love and devotion to Amethyst. After all, he was about to execute his own wife!

  Still, it was so hard to believe that Topaz had been cowed and chastened at last. As soon as she was free and the boys were safe once more, would she keep her word, or would she just start even more trouble than she already had?

  Torn, she nearly dropped Topaz's parchment in the river as the boat docked. But no, she couldn't do that to Topaz, not when the boys were in prison. She definitely could not do such a thing to Matthew. She had to give them all a chance for survival, even if her sister chose to throw it away again one day.

  She tucked the letter securely inside her bodice. She would hand the message to the King. After all, it really wasn't up to her, now was it. The decision was still his as king, and who knew these days what was going on in the mind of the King. Not even she who had loved him so well once could fathom what he had become ever since he had met Anne Boleyn.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Tower of London

  Topaz watched from the tiny crack in the window early one morning as Anne Boleyn, shrouded in a robe of black damask covered with a white mantle, marched across the courtyard accompanied by four of her ladies, and climbed up the scaffold to the platform to be executed.

  Topaz pushed the window open as far as it would go on its rusty hinges, just enough to thrust four fingers through the narrow opening and feel the chilly air seep into the musty cell. The breeze carried Anne's voice in her direction, and she could hear every word clearly, for Anne spoke loudly and deliberately, as if to reach the far corners of the kingdom.

  "Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, for according to the law and by the law, I am judged to die, and therefore I shall speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the King and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never, and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul."

  Then she was finished. The painful silence continued. The crowd waited with baited breath to see if she would speak any more. Anne's farewell speech to the world struck Topaz as uncharacteristic of a woman who had defended her innocence to the end.

  Topaz vowed that if she ever ended up in the same spot, she certainly never go to her death speaking kindly of the likes of Henry Tudor. Nay, not even for the sake of her children.

  The swordsman especially imported from France stood by, a black hood pulled over his head. One of Anne's attendants blindfolded her, and she lowered her head to the block. As he wielded the sword, she suddenly jumped up and turned.

  Her head was swiftly severed despite her one last bid for freedom. Blood spewed forth, soaking the straw, the Bishop's robe, the swordsman's cloak. The crowd rushed forward, dipping cloths in the dead queen's blood, sopping it up like gravy from a trencher.

  She pulled the window shut in disgust and disappointment in the feisty Anne for dying such an untriumphant death and, turning away, did not waste any more time to watch as the men started stuffing the headless corpse into the narrow chest Anne's maids had hastily rummaged up as a makeshift coffin. It was over. The once most powerful woman in the realm was no more.

  As she would be too, if her ruse didn't work…

  As the cannons fired to signal the moment of her death, the King crumpled up Topaz's letter and passed a sentence of life imprisonment against her. Her sons would also remain imprisoned as surety for her good behavior. Henry wasn't a total fool and the letter did not gull him in the least, but he was willing to spare her for Amethyst's sake.

  Amethyst was infinitely relieved, for though life imprisonment was a dire fate, where there was life, there was hope. "Thank you, my lord, thank you! You don't know what it means to my mother and me and our youngest sister Emerald to have Topaz alive! Not to mention her sons."

  He nodded. "I did it out of my love for you, my dear heart. I could not bear to see you lose your sister. She will live, but she must stay imprisoned in the Tower. But one slip, mind you, and up the scaffold she goes." He waggled a beefy forefinger in front of her nose by way of warning.

  "No, sire, she will not, I know my sister better than anyone! She is truly sorry."

  "Then come here and show your king how much you appreciate his generosity. Make those cannon shots stop ringing in my ears."

  They hadn't been together since before he had gone to battle and her sister's incarceration, and at times she'd felt that pang of longing for his strength seeping into hers, melti
ng her into helplessness under the powers of his learned caresses.

  She approached him shakily, for she trembled at the thought of Anne's severed head and lifeless body being dragged from the scaffold.

  He didn't allow her to hesitate for long. With one sweeping motion, he whisked her into his arms and dipped her, then lowered his face to meet hers in a warm and intriguing kiss that made her body grow rigid and weak at the same time. She inhaled the tang of his scent as his lips parted and his tongue searched for hers, forcing her mouth open hungrily.

  "Oh, my Amethyst, 'Tis been such a long time," he moaned, guiding her over to his imposing bed, parting the draperies with one elbow.