by V. E. Lynne
“It seems I am at your command, my lord. What would you have me do?” The guilt she had seen in his eyes rose up and, just briefly, Bridget thought that he might take pity on her, that he might allow her to disentangle herself from his net and go on her way. But no. Nobody escaped Thomas Cromwell twice and Bridget would be no exception to that rule. His moment of weakness passed, and his expression turned as hard as a winter frost. Then he told her exactly what she must do.
Chapter Seventeen
Bridget picked up the grey silk gown and allowed its cool, opalescent folds to arrange themselves languidly against her body. It was a new gown, and tonight would be its first and possibly only outing. She could not imagine wearing it ever again, not after what she proposed to do in it. For tonight was the night that she would give herself to the king.
That was the price, Cromwell had informed her, that she must pay to secure the survival of the de Brett family. The king desired her—he was lonely without a woman, and the search for a new wife was proving both prolonged and troublesome. Christina, Duchess of Milan, the king’s preferred choice, was showing herself less than enthusiastic at the prospect of wedding Henry Tudor. And who could blame her? Bridget thought grimly. With a marital record such as his, it would be a minor miracle if any woman consented to place her head in the yoke. Or upon the block, as the case may be.
“Until a new marriage can be arranged, and I hope for an alliance with Cleves as you know, His Majesty requires female companionship and female . . . comfort. You are the one, he has determined, who shall provide that comfort. In return, you and your family shall occupy a place of honour at court. Your husband may even climb further up the ranks of the peerage. All things are possible; after all, there may be some vacant titles, lands and riches up for grabs soon.”
Bridget had not needed to ask to whom he referred—the White Rose faction was replete in wealth and manors so much so that, should they fall vacant, many a courtier would sacrifice their own mothers to lay their hands on them. But none of that concerned Bridget. “Those are matters that preoccupy the minds of avaricious men, my lord. They do not preoccupy me. All I want to know is that my kin, the abbess, Joanna and even my husband will be safe. I want to know, I want your word, your absolute word that they are out of all danger. That they are untouchable.”
Cromwell had smiled at her, a soft smile, and then patted her hand. “Do not fret my lady. You are under my protection now” he had said comfortingly. “We have formed an alliance, you and I, and I always honour my alliances. I assure you that none of your kinfolk will be touched. You have my word on it.”
Bridget rubbed away the goose pimples that had sprung up along her arm at the memory of the conversation. Despite her best efforts, she had entwined her path with that of the brewer’s son, just as the gypsy had warned her against, and now she was trapped. Ensnared. She knew that, whatever he had told her, Cromwell would not hesitate to move against her family if it served his purpose. The flimsy nature of the evidence would not deter him. The king had no difficulty signing anyone’s death warrant and sending them off to the most horrific of ends. John Lambert, the man whom the king had examined himself before virtually the whole court at Whitehall, had recently met his fate in a manner that had made even the most hardened blanch. He had been taken to Smithfield and burnt at the stake screaming out to Christ as the flames consumed him. It had taken him quite some time to die.
With that example before her, there could be no doubt left in Bridget’s mind that the king was prepared to consign anybody to the worst sort of death, even an old woman who had once run an abbey and could trace her line back to the Conquest. That history would avail her nothing. In Bridget’s estimation, it was entirely her fault that the abbess stood in any peril. She should have torn Thorns apart and destroyed anything and everything that had appeared even slightly incriminating. She should never have allowed matters to reach this stage, but she had. She had failed and now she must pay for that failure.
“Bridget, is it nearly time? Is there anything that I can do for you?” Joanna asked, stepping into the bedchamber.
Bridget glanced at her friend, companion and relative and managed a watery smile. She could feel the tears burning at the back of her eyes, and she had to forcefully blink them away. As much as she longed to break down and cry like a child, she could not; it was time, long past time, for her to grow up and put away childish things. Greater women than herself had found themselves in a similar, unenviable position and they had not given in to their emotions. They had not buckled. They had not weakened. Neither would she.
“Thank you, Joanna, but I require nothing. Yes, I expect it is nearly time. The page should be here at any moment.”
“Oh, Bridget, I am so sorry, is there no other way? Perhaps if you talked to the king again?”
“No, that is not possible. Not anymore. There is no other path that is open to me now, not if I wish to keep everyone’s heads upon their shoulders, as I most certainly do. The time for talking is over.”
Bridget had taken Joanna into her confidence after she had spoken to Cromwell. She had had no choice but to do so, as Joanna had been the one who found the scrap of the Five Wounds banner in the first place. Joanna then, as now, had tried to put forth a counter argument, had tried to find a mode of escape for her, some way out, but even she had soon seen that it was futile.
Bridget took off her robe and began to don the grey gown; Joanna came forward to help her, fitting the sleeves and tying the straight laces that ran up the back with her habitual nimbleness. Once she was finished, Bridget asked her to bring forth the velvet pouch. Joanna obeyed, drawing the small bag from the depths of the jewellery box. She handed it to Bridget with an expression of pure reluctance.
“Is it really necessary for you to wear that?” she queried as Bridget lifted the “B” pendant out of its pouch and fastened it about her slender neck. It rested sharply against her collarbone, like a knife pressed against her throat.
“Oh, it is more than necessary; it is what the king wants. It is his innermost desire. Why else did he give it to me in the first place and then insist that I keep it when I tried to give it back to him? Oh yes, he wants me to wear it. I understand his intentions now and what lies beneath them; he sees Anne in me. He may have banned all mention of her name, he may have eradicated all trace of her existence from every inch of his palaces, but yet she is still there. He cannot get rid of her, she is inside his mind, dogging his thoughts, haunting his dreams. I will therefore give her to him. I will wear my grey gown, don my French hood and display the letter ‘B’ around my neck, and I will go to him as one risen from the grave. Hopefully it will be enough to keep us from ours.”
Bridget had no sooner finished speaking than there was a loud knock at the door. She stayed Joanna’s advance with a look and opened it herself. Attired as she was, she half-expected to find the mournful figure of Sir William Kingston standing on the other side ready to escort her to the scaffold and the Calais swordsman.
But no. There was no Kingston, just a solitary page, a young man whose name she did not know, who’d come to lead her to a different tower and a different fate. He stood there awkwardly, his face aflame with the embarrassment of his task. “My lady, His Majesty the King requires your presence forthwith. He awaits you at Mireflore, otherwise known as Duke Humphrey’s Tower. If you would care to accompany me, madam, I will escort you there at once.”
“Of course, sir,” Bridget responded, her voice unnaturally calm. “I am, as you see, entirely prepared. Lead on, I do not wish to keep the king waiting.”
She bid farewell to Joanna, who hugged her as if they would never see one another again, and then she followed the page out the door and along the quiet passageway. They left the palace by the same exit as she and Will had on her previous foray to Mireflore and they also took the same path across the park and up the hill, the flare of the page’s torch providing the only light in the gathering darkness.
A contingent of the
guard was stationed outside the tower, and many of them regarded Bridget with amused disdain, as if she were a common strumpet from the stews of Southwark, one of the infamous “Winchester geese,” as they were called, and not the sober, honourable wife of a favoured courtier. I suppose I will have to get used to that look, Bridget mused, for my days of being sober and honourable are soon to come to an end.
The page escorted her hurriedly up the winding stone staircase and down the familiar short corridor to the room at the very end. He rapped once at the door and a voice within bid him to enter. “Your Majesty,” he intoned, stepping into the room, “the Lady de Brett is here.” He announced her name as though she were a French princess or a foreign ambassador, not a woman he had brought forth in the dead of night to sleep with the king.
“Excellent, Thomas. Thank you, you may retire for the evening.”
Another Thomas, Bridget reflected morosely. This Thomas bowed and took his leave. He shut the door quietly behind him and Bridget was left alone with King Henry. Her immediate reaction, as always, was to curtsey, but as she was about to descend into the action, the king shook his head. “No,” he said. He went across to a side table, poured some hot, spiced wine into a golden cup, and handed it across to her.
She took it and had to hold herself back from drinking it down in one gulp. The warmth of the liquid and the sweetness of the spice soon had the desired effect and she could feel the tight knot of dread in her stomach loosening. The king watched her as she drank, and his face took on a look of wolfish longing, as if he yearned to sink his teeth into her flesh. The pendant caught his attention, and he traced the outline of it, allowing his fingers to stray to the bare skin on either side.
“B for Bridget,” he said lowly, “or, more accurately, it is B for Beautiful. For that is what you are. You are so very beautiful. Like an angel. I am glad that you wore this for me; you must always do so whenever I am near. I never want to see it off your neck.”
He bent forward and kissed the long column of her aforementioned neck, trailing an unhurried path downwards and then up to the underside of her jaw. His lips were hot and wet from the wine and they seemed to suck at her skin, like a leech. He kissed her and kissed her, making his way with excruciating slowness from her neck to her chin, and then along the side of her face and eventually all the way to her mouth. There he stopped, the edge of his lips just scraping hers before he drew back. His visage changed, a look of fury replacing that of desire, and he cupped her head in his big hands. He began to exert pressure on her skull, gently at first, and then harder and harder until Bridget felt as if she was caught in a vice. Fear danced along her spine and the pain grew to such an extent that she thought she might faint, but she did not move a muscle in response to it. She did not dare.
“Tell me, dear heart, do you find me handsome? Hmm? Have you come here tonight of your own free will? If not, then tell me now, for I am a man of honour and I would force no one, especially no woman, to act against her conscience. Give me your answer, my lady, before I proceed any further.”
Bridget was amazed that she could still respond to such a question with perfect equanimity, but she was beginning to accept that she was capable of a great many things that she had previously thought impossible. “Yes, Your Majesty,” she replied. “I am here entirely of my own free will. My conscience is clear; it troubles me not. I want to give myself to you, sire. I want that more than anything. And yes, I do find you handsome. You are the king—no man in the world compares with you.”
The lies had hardly had time to trip off her tongue before the king captured it with his mouth. His own tongue was rough and insistent and tasted of spice and something else, something sour, like milk that had been left out in the sun too long. He expertly unlaced her gown and slid it down off her body until her breasts were exposed to his gaze. He squeezed them forcefully, and this time Bridget could not suppress a little cry of pain. “Oh, you like that, madam?” he said, mistaking her pain for pleasure. “I thought that you would.”
The bed stood in the corner of the chamber and the king manoeuvred her quickly over to it. Bridget’s last hope had been that Henry’s health, the famous whispers surrounding his impotence, might save her from this ordeal, but that hope soon melted away like snow in summer. The king was strong, frighteningly strong, and the hardness she could feel pressing against her dashed all her dreams of impotence. He was capable, perfectly so, and he was about to show her how much.
The back of Bridget’s legs hit the side of the bed, and the king easily pushed her onto it, coming down on top of her. The sheer weight of him was crushing, and Bridget felt most of the air leave her lungs. She struggled to breathe but once again the king misinterpreted this as eagerness and he hastily raised her skirts and got between her legs. He positioned himself and Bridget gritted her teeth as the king thrust inside her for the first time. She turned her head to the side, in an effort to distance herself from the act and to hide the shimmer of her tears, but Henry would not allow her to do that; he demanded that she look at him.
“Yes, my love,” he hissed, “you are mine now and you will obey me. You will open yourself to me.” He pushed deeper. “I am your king. I will teach you what that means.”
His eyes bored into hers, and he grabbed the pendant around her neck and pulled it as tight as it would go. Bridget felt her air being constricted and she grasped at the pendant, but fortunately the sensation of strangulation did not last as the king stilled above her, let out a strangled cry and collapsed onto the bed, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Bridget’s insides were bruised, her lungs burned, but it was over. Less than a minute and, thank Jesu, it was over.
The king brought his breathing under control, got to his feet and laced his codpiece, the embroidered letters “HR” standing out in gold thread, his plump fingers working quickly and nimbly. Bridget followed his lead: she stood and speedily readjusted herself, simultaneously pushing her breasts back into her bodice and pulling down her skirts. Her hair had come loose and she set about tidying it, but the king stayed her hand. “Leave it. It is a shame to cover such lovely hair; it is like a cascade of golden silk. The next time you come to me,” he brushed some stray tendrils from her clammy brow, “make sure that you wear it loose, like a maiden. Like Guinevere giving herself to Lancelot. Will you do that for me, Bridget?”
It was the first time that the king had used her Christian name and, though it sounded ill in her ears, she smiled and let her hair tumble about her shoulders. “As you wish, Your Majesty,” she said, hating the note of acquiescence in her voice. The king nodded, clearly pleased with her, and gave her a final kiss, this time placing it on her hand, as though he were indeed a knight of legend and she his lady fair.
He turned, made for the door, and was about to knock to summon an attendant when he suddenly spun back to face her. “I almost forgot, madam, but there is one more thing I must tell you. I have granted your husband leave to absent himself from court, as he desires to inspect his new properties. He told me he intends to take his sister, Mistress Joan, with him; apparently, she has tired of London and longs for the country air. I am sure he will write to you and tell you all about it in due course. In the meantime, you will accompany me to Richmond. We shall travel there together in my barge. Would you like that?”
“Oh, yes, Your Majesty,” Bridget said, her voice small. “I should like that very much.”
Chapter Eighteen
One month later, as promised, they sailed upriver on the royal barge bound for Richmond Palace. Richmond was a residence built in the time of the king’s father and situated on the site of the old Manor of Sheen, on the Surrey shore of the Thames. Bridget had never been there before and was looking forward to seeing it. As the barge sailed serenely atop the calm waters, she imagined what Richmond might look like. She needed something positive to look forward to, something to distract her mind from her current situation. She had been positioned in the boat, to her chagrin, to the right of the king, as close as
he could place her whilst still observing some degree of propriety. She was garbed in a new gown of rich red brocade, the bright sunlight catching the numerous golden threads that ran through it. It was one of the many presents that the king had showered her with since she had consented to become his mistress. If “consented” was indeed the right word.
Bridget looked down at her folded, pale hands and pretended to admire Henry’s latest gift of jewellery, a pretty, delicately wrought ring studded with a single, luminous white pearl. She spent much of her time with her head lowered these days in order to avoid the gazes of the courtiers that followed her everywhere. Even now, they could not keep their eyes off her and neither could the crowds of ordinary people who had lined the riverbanks to see the king’s barge pass by. She heard their speculative whispers float across the water as they gaped and gossiped amongst themselves about the unknown young lady in red.
The attention of the courtiers that she was now forced to endure was not all hostile. Since it had become common knowledge that the king had taken her to his bed, she had been wooed by both sides at court—the Seymours on the one hand, led by the now-friendly Lady Hertford, and the conservatives on the other. Gertrude, the Marchioness of Exeter, had always been pleasant to her, but in the wake of Bridget’s “elevation,” she had stepped up her efforts to become her friend; she could barely move a pace or two before Lady Exeter would appear before her, a warm smile permanently etched on her face. Bridget wanted to chart a middle way at court as much as she could; after all, her goal was to avoid danger not to run straight into its arms. The king disliked women who tried to meddle in politics in any case; he could not stand to be contradicted by anyone, let alone a female. Bridget was not about to make the attempt.