“Knowledge has its price, m’lady, and you seek my knowledge in escaping this fair green prison. What price will you pay me?” He cocked his head, and in doing so rendered the feather in his flat velvet cap to an even jauntier angle.
She paused as if to consider his words. She had been at court long enough to know that the king was playing a game with her. She did not know whether to laugh, or whether to be frightened. Henry Tudor was very powerful. Better never to show fear, she thought, and laughed.
“Very well, my lord, what price would you put upon this great knowledge of yours, which will free me from this labyrinth?”
“An extravagant one, madam. I would have a kiss of you.”
Dangerous ground, yet she could hardly refuse him. “I must pay,” she said with a mock sigh, “but not until we have reached the outside, sire.”
Now it was his turn to laugh. She was a clever little puss for all her virtue and modesty. “Done!” he said with a grin, and reaching out, took her small hand in his rather large paw so he might lead her from the maze. Finally he stopped and said, “Around this corner lies freedom. You must pay your tithe now, but here where we may be private and safe from prying eyes.” Reaching out, he drew her into his arms.
Suddenly Blaze found she was afraid. She placed her hands upon his wide velvet-clad chest to hold him off saying as she did so, “My lord ... please . . . I ...”
“Hush, sweetheart,” said the king gently. “I will not harm you. You have ne’er been kissed except by your late husband, I can see that; but for all your sweet virtue, madam, I mean to have your lips, so cease your useless chatter,” and then the king clamped his mouth firmly over hers.
It was a passionate and demanding kiss, and far from being quickly over, as she had assumed, the king’s lips lingered on hers, moving tenderly over the softness, coaxing a response from her that when it came surprised her so that she moaned low.
Cradling her with one strong arm as she fell back against him, the king loosened her laces with expert fingers and slipped his hand into her bodice to cup a breast. His thumb rubbed quickly and insistently over the sensitive little nipple which hardened beneath his sensual touch.
“No!” she cried, attempting to struggle. “Oh, please, no!”
“Shhhhhh, sweetheart, do not fight me,” he begged her, and his head dipped so he might kiss the soft perfumed flesh of her breasts. “Ahhh, my beauty, you are so lovely. So very, very lovely!”
Using every ounce of her strength, and sobbing with defiant terror, Blaze pulled desperately away from the king, and clutching her open bodice to her heaving bosom, she turned and fled him around the last corner of the maze into the garden proper. Finding a distant spot, she quickly redid her laces as best she could, and then hurried back to Bliss’s apartments. She was relieved to find herself completely alone, and slipping into her room, she sat down upon the bed and wept.
That the king would accost her surprised her totally. She was not so innocent any longer that she did not know he enjoyed dallying with the ladies, but she was not at all like Bessie Blount or Mary Boleyn. She had not sought to gain his attention, and she had believed that her virtuous demeanor, while not protecting her from other men whose behavior was apt to be gross, would have at least sent a signal to the king, who she believed must surely be the most chivalrous of gentlemen. How wrong she had been, and now what was she to do?
A knock sounded upon her door. Her heart leapt in her chest. Had he dared to follow her to her very bedchamber? Nay. Not even the king would do that. “Come in,” she called, and a young page entered the room.
“His majesty requests that you attend upon him at once, my lady Wyndham,” said the boy in his piping voice.
Blaze gasped. “I cannot!” The words were out before she even had the time to think.
The boy whitened, looking shocked. “Madame, for God’s own mercy, do not send me back to the king with such a message. I shall be surely dismissed from my position, and I am a younger son. I can only make my way in life through my success at court!”
“Nay,” said Blaze, rising. “I did not mean it. I will come with you.” Poor lad, she thought. He was as much of a victim as she was. Following in his wake, she allowed him to lead her to the king’s apartments, and through the royal antechamber, where half the men at court it seemed were there to witness her shame, and into the king’s privy chamber. The boy, opening the door, bade her enter, and was then gone.
Turning from the windows, the king said, “Are you quite recovered now, madam?”
What could she say? He was the king. Mutely she nodded.
“I will try and go slowly for your sake, Blaze,” the king said, using her name for the very first time, “but understand, madam, that I mean to have you for my own.”
“Sire—” she began.
“Be silent! I have not given you my permission to speak. You have a child, do you not?”
“Aye, my lord. A daughter. Her name is Nyssa.”
“Greek! Do you speak Greek, madam?”
“My husband was teaching me, sire.”
“Your daughter, how old is she?” the king asked.
“She is two, sire.”
“And who is the legal guardian of little Lady Nyssa and whatever fortune she may have?”
“I assume I am, sire,” she answered him hesitantly.
“Nay, madam, a woman cannot hold such a position without my express permission, and for now you do not have that permission. What property does the child possess?”
“Nyssa was given a small estate with two villages and a fine house called Riverside.”
“I shall have to think about a guardian, a proper guardian for this little heiress. She will, of course, be raised within her guardian’s house as well. I am certain I can think of someone suitable.”
Blaze could feel her heart hammering wildly in her chest. “Sire, you would surely not take my daughter from me?”
“A child with your daughter’s value must have a suitable guardian,” said the king. “A woman, particularly a disobedient woman who does not understand how she must behave with her sovereign, is certainly not a proper governor for an innocent child.”
“Then appoint my parents, Lord and Lady Morgan of Ashby to be Nyssa’s guardians. They have had eleven children, eight of whom are still home. My daughter is with them now!”
The king appeared to consider, and then he said, “Nay. A child with the kind of wealth your daughter possesses needs a more powerful person to oversee her upbringing. Someone with influence who has the king’s favor and his ear. I must think upon it, madam, and my decision, of course, will rest upon your future behavior. Do you understand that, madam?”
“Aye, my lord, I understand,” Blaze said low.
“Then come and kiss me, sweetheart, for it pains me to quarrel with you. There are far more pleasant things that we might do together, Blaze.”
Slowly she walked across the room to him, and raising her head accepted his kiss.
“Open your mouth, Blaze, and receive my tongue,” he ordered her, and his arms closed about her, imprisoning her within his embrace.
Obeying him, she shivered at the touch of his tongue on hers, though she sought to hide it. His tongue swept with unhurried grace about her mouth. His arm was tight about her waist, pressing her hard against him, and the scent of orris root assailed her nostrils. I am going to faint, she thought, feeling herself growing weaker in his embrace.
The king felt her sink against him, and with a swift single movement he picked her up in his arms, and seating himself in a chair by the fire which was lit to keep the damp of the river from the room, he said as he cradled her, “There, sweetheart, don’t be afraid of me. I only want to love you a little.”
Dear God, Blaze thought as she huddled in his lap, biting back her sobs, how mercurial he was. One moment he was threatening her, and the next he played the tender lover. Now she understood the meaning of real power, and it was a bitter lesson. Why had she not stayed safe
in the country? Better to be surrounded by the pain of her happy memories than to be at Henry Tudor’s mercy.
Undoing her laces, he slipped a large hand into her bodice and fondled her breasts. “How I long to see you as God fashioned you in your natural state,” he said softly. “What sweet breasts you have, Blaze.”
She made another effort at deterring his intent. “My lord, please, I beg of you, I am not like the others! I was raised to be chaste, and I have always been chaste.”
“That, my little country girl, is more than obvious. You have been quite the talk of my gentlemen this winter for your persistent refusal to yield to their amorous intent. Tom Seymour says that you hit him so hard when he tried to steal a kiss that his head rang for days after with your blow. I, however, am not a simple gentleman of this realm. I am the first gentleman of this realm. Did your parents not teach you that your first duty was to your king?”
“I was taught that my first duty was to God, my lord, and what you hint at is against God’s law,” Blaze retorted with more spirit than she was actually feeling.
“Your first spiritual duty, madam, is indeed to God; but your first temporal duty is to me, your king,” he replied, a bit surprised by the logic behind her quick reply.
There was a long period of silence between them, during which the king caressed the globes of her breasts and smoothed warm kisses upon the tender flesh of her throat. Then finally he spoke again. “Where do you reside within the palace, madam?”
“With the Earl and Countess of Marwood, sire,” she answered him softly.
“I certainly cannot be seen stalking the palace corridors to seek your favors in Owen’s apartments. There are those who would certainly leap to the wrong conclusions. You will be moved into your own apartments, Blaze. They are located directly above mine, and I may gain entry to them by using a small private inner staircase. People may speculate all they want, but no one will really know if or when I visit you.”
“Oh, no, my lord, please! I will obey you in all things, but do not make my shame a public matter!” Blaze begged him.
“Why, sweetheart,” Henry Tudor said in a kindly tone, “there is no shame in belonging to a king. I shall give orders that your apartments be refurbished at once. You shall move into them on May Day, when you will reign as Queen of Beauty and Love over all the court. Until that time I will remain a patient lover, only kissing and cuddling you, for there is a certain piquancy to abstinence.”
He kept her in his lap for a few more minutes, taking his pleasure of her, and then lacing her bodice back up, he dismissed her with a gentle kiss. Blaze left the king’s privy chamber, her head held high, despite her flaming cheeks, as she passed through the crowd of the king’s gentlemen, who all smiled at her with knowing looks and winks.
Thomas Seymour stepped boldly before Blaze to block her way. “So, Lady Wyndham, you have saved your precious virtue for the king.” He sneered.
“Better a king than a knave!” she snapped angrily, and pushing him aside, hurried from the royal apartments while behind her the room erupted into guffaws of delighted laughter.
Bliss knew! How could she know? Did everyone in the whole damned palace know of her humiliation? “Do not even speak to me,” she warned her younger sister as she hurried into their apartments.
“Do not be a little fool, Blaze,” replied Bliss, not one bit intimidated by her elder sibling. “My God, you have been singled out by the king!”
“I do not want to be singled out! And for what have I been singled out, Bliss? Are you aware that he seeks to bed me? Do you think I count it an honor to be the royal whore? Dear God, I wish I had never come to court! I wish I were safely home with my child! Why, oh why, did God take Edmund from me?” Then she burst into tears.
Bliss grasped her sister by her arms and shook her. “Stop it!” she commanded Blaze. “Stop it this instant! Would you rouse all of Greenwich? It would get back to the king, and he would be humiliated that the lady he has honored with his attentions finds them so odious! God’s foot, Blaze! This is not some randy gentleman. This is the king we speak of, dearest.”
“The king is the randiest gentleman of them all!” Blaze half-sobbed.
“You cannot refuse him, sister, and having been singled out by him, you must put on your prettiest face. No king’s mistress ever wailed and wept publicly at her fate, and neither can you. Think, dearest, there are others involved in this too. If you offend the king, Blaze, his anger will not just fall upon you, but upon Owen and me as well. After all, you came to court under our protection,” Bliss reasoned, leading her sister to the settle by the fire, where they sat down together. “Come, Blaze,” she said more gently. “What is so terrible? The king wishes to make love to you, and he is, at least by reputation, an excellent lover. There is nothing so awful in that, is there?”
“The king is a married man, Bliss! Does that not distress you, for it certainly distresses me.”
“The king has not cohabited with the queen in some time now, sister. Besides, it is not considered that a king is unfaithful to his queen if he but keeps a mistress. After all, he does not seek to set his mistress in his consort’s place. The queen has politely turned a blind eye for many years to the king’s pleasure. The only sins she found in Bessie Blount and Mary Boleyn were that they gave him living sons when she could not.
“The king means to do away with Catherine of Aragon one way or another, Blaze. He needs a wife who can give him sons, and he will have one. What a pity that you do not have a greater rank, sister, else you might aspire to Spanish Catherine’s place.”
“Bliss!” Blaze was horrified by her younger sister’s statement.
Bliss shrugged prettily. “Well, at least you have stopped your weeping,” she said practically.
“What am I to do, Bliss? Help me, sister, I beg of you!”
Bliss sighed. “Face the facts, Blaze. The king has made his intentions most clear. You have no real choice in the matter, except perhaps,” she laughed, “in choosing the color of the draperies in your new apartments.”
“How . . . ?” gasped Blaze.
“You are to be a king’s mistress, little silly! This is not some hole-in-the-wall, havey-cavey affaire de coeur between a maid of honor and Sir Somebody of No Importance! Of course the king would install you in your own apartments, and quite near to him, I expect.”
“Directly above him with a private inner staircase,” said Blaze dryly. There was an almost macabre humor to the situation.
“Ohh,” said Bliss, momentarily awed. “You will have a wonderful view of the river. We must engage you several more maidservants at once! When are you to move?”
“Do you think I want a gaggle of strange serving wenches gossiping my every kiss and sigh about the palace? Thank you, no! Heartha is all that I need,” snapped Blaze.
“God’s foot!” swore Bliss. “My Betty will be so envious. She has become quite ambitious since we came to court, and she has had high hopes for me, you know.”
“Bliss! You would not be unfaithful to Owen surely?”
“Nay,” laughed Bliss, shaking her head. “I could never be entirely unfaithful to my husband. Alas, I love the rogue! The king rarely considers happily married ladies anyway. He is too much the gentleman.”
“What do you mean when you say you could not be entirely unfaithful to Owen?” demanded her elder sister.
“Welllll,” allowed Bliss, “I do not object when a handsome gentleman steals a kiss or a cuddle. That is not really being unfaithful.”
“Oh, Bliss,” laughed Blaze helplessly, “I never realized until this moment how very different we really are. You are so much of the court, and I am as the king has duly noted, a little country girl.”
“Has he kissed you?” Bliss was unfazed by her sister’s words.
“Aye.”
“Was it wonderful?”
“It was a kiss,” said Blaze, trying not to remember how possessed she had really felt by his lips.
“God’s f
oot, sister! Do not ever tell a man that he kissed you ‘just a kiss.’ Pretend if you must, particularly with the king. Swooning is always a fine device. It seems to give men a greater feeling of power. Has he caressed you?”
“Aye.”
“Aye? Just ‘aye’? Tell me all!” Bliss demanded.
“There is nothing to tell,” said Blaze, rising from the settle. “Let me be, Bliss! I am exhausted, and I must rest. Even I, for all my country ways, know that I must appear at dinner this evening bright and smiling lest I cause more gossip than is already flying about Greenwich with regard to the king and me.”
From that day onward Blaze was marked as royal property, and she was treated with sudden deference. It was that evening she noticed it first. People of great rank who had not deigned to admit her existence before were suddenly bowing, smiling, and nodding to her as she walked by. Invitations to card parties and picnics flowed into the Earl of Marwood’s apartments. There was no more pretense on the king’s part. His desire for Lady Wyndham was marked and quite obvious. Now she was bidden to sit by his side at the high board in the banqueting hall where he would offer her sips of wine from his own goblet, and feed her sweetmeats from his very plate.
Her behavior was perfect. Indeed, said Bliss, there had never been such an elegant royal mistress, for Blaze was charming to all, but carefully favored none. She was wise enough to know that it was unlikely the king’s passion for her would last forever, and so she tried not to make enemies.
“I am not the king’s mistress yet,” Blaze protested to Bliss.
“ ’Tis but a matter of time, and we both know it,” said Bliss airily. “Do you think that after you move into your new apartments tomorrow, you will be able to so easily keep Henry Tudor at arm’s length as you have been doing? He is more man than most, and I am surprised that you have kept him at bay this long. God’s foot! Are you not excited? To be loved by a king! What heaven!”
What hell! thought Blaze silently. Bliss was right, of course, and after tomorrow she could not keep the king at arm’s length. Tomorrow was May first and she would reign at the king’s express command over the May Day festivities. Blaze Wyndham would be the royal court’s Queen of Beauty and Love. Bliss had even brought her very own dressmaker down from London to fashion Blaze’s gown. The woman was an artist in her own right, Blaze admitted to herself, but she detested her fawning manner. Why was it that everyone thought it such an honor to be a king’s paramour? Was she wrong, and they right? Was there any wrong or right about the matter?
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