At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) (19 page)

She awoke on the day after Lady Hungerford’s departure to the sound of horses and wagons arriving in the courtyard. A spark of curiosity stirred within her. “Who has come, Meriall?” she whispered.

But Meriall was not in the room with her. She had already gone down to investigate. Impatient, and more alert than she had been since the loss of her baby, Anne rose from the bed. If she wanted an answer anytime soon, she would have to find it for herself. She made her way to the window on unsteady legs and flung back the curtains, setting up a great clatter as the gilded rings that held them rattled along the fixed rod.

The panes of glass were coated with frost, but when she scrubbed
at them with the side of her hand she could make out a portion of the inner court below. She frowned when she saw the Stafford knots prominently displayed on the hangings of a litter and several men in the Duke of Buckingham’s red and black livery milling about. She had not seen her brother since that disastrous day at court and could not imagine what he would be doing here. Nor did it seem likely that his duchess would visit Ashby de la Zouch in January.

The explanation came a moment later, when the door to Anne’s chamber was flung open and Madge Geddings rushed in. “Lady Anne!” she exclaimed. “You will catch your death of cold standing about in nothing but your nightgown.”

Clucking in the manner of a mother hen, even though she was several years Anne’s junior, Madge spied Anne’s warm night robe and insisted that she don it. That accomplished, she stirred the embers in the hearth until they produced a satisfactory flame, then called for bread and ale so that Anne might break her fast. No doubt she would have found some other service to perform had Anne not caught hold of her arm.

“What are you doing here, Madge? Did Edward send you to spy on me?”

Once she was no longer busying herself with domestic tasks, Madge’s unease suddenly became obvious. She could not meet Anne’s eyes.

Meriall’s arrival, just ahead of servants bringing food and drink, prevented Anne from insisting on an explanation. Instead she seated herself at a small table and invited Madge to join her. Madge waited until they were alone again, then slowly removed her cloak.

Anne stared. Madge was expecting a child, and before much longer, too. “What madness is this, to send you out on winter roads? Or did my brother hope some accident would befall you and the child?”

“Lady Anne! What a thing to say! I came to visit you and brighten your spirits. And to spare the duchess the awkwardness of having me give birth to her husband’s child under her own roof at Thornbury.”

“My brother has much to answer for,” Anne muttered, helping herself to a generous portion of beef and bread. There was both ale and
mulled cider and she chose the former. Meriall had been nagging her to eat to rebuild her strength.

“What do you mean?” Madge looked wary and did not touch the food.

“Edward condemned me unfairly. He judged me wanton and sent me into imprisonment in a terrible place. The prioress at Littlemore truly is a wanton, and cruel with it. I blame her treatment of me for the loss of my child.” The story of her ordeal in the stocks poured out of her in a rush and afterward she felt better for telling someone what had happened.

Madge’s initial shock was quickly replaced by denial. “I am certain your brother knew nothing of this. I admit he has a temper, and he was wroth with you for what he saw as behavior that reflected badly on the Stafford name, but he is at heart a compassionate man, and to poor religious houses in particular, he is wont to be generous. This Littlemore—is it a small place?”

“Small, backward, and neglected,” Anne conceded.

Madge nodded, as if this confirmed her opinion. “Your brother has a weakness for such priories. He tries to do good. Why, at Hinton, near Bath, he pays the fees for one of the prior’s servants and he has recently taken an interest in a lad recommended by one of the monks. He talks of sending the boy to Oxford.”

“Where he, too, can be corrupted by the nuns at nearby Littlemore,” Anne muttered.

“I will tell the duke what the prioress did to you.”

“No!”

“But why not? He will see to it that she is punished.”

Would he? Anne had her doubts, but she said only, “I wish to take revenge on her myself.”

“How?”

“By writing to her bishop to complain of her. Except that I am not sure he will pay any attention to my letter if he has heard why I was sent there.” Anne shoved her trencher aside. Her appetite had fled.

“You need an intermediary,” Madge said. “You might send your chaplain.”

Anne made a face. George’s chaplain, Sir John Canne, was no friend to her. She much disliked having him as her confessor. But Madge’s suggestion gave her an idea. She did know another priest, one who might even have some clout.

Thomas Wolsey, the royal chaplain who had performed her wedding ceremony, had been kind to her when he’d come upon her weeping in the chapel at Richmond. Since that time, he had acquired several ecclesiastical honors and been appointed to the king’s Privy Council, too.

“Your brother is very good to me,” Madge said, distracting Anne from her plotting.

Anne gave her a hard look. “Madge, you are of gentle birth. You should be married to some country squire, bearing him sons to inherit his land. Edward is a selfish pig.”

“But I love him!”

Anne opened her mouth, then closed it again. She had seen that starry-eyed look on other women’s faces. If Madge fancied herself in love with Edward, it was useless to try to convince her that no good could come of continuing her liaison with him. Nor did Anne speak to Madge of her desire to see Edward suffer as she had suffered. Time had dulled her sharpest cravings for revenge, but she would still be glad of an opportunity to inflict damage on her brother’s reputation.

When she was alone again, she took out parchment, pen, and ink and composed a long letter to Thomas Wolsey, king’s chaplain, almoner, and confessor, member of the Privy Council, and dean of both Lincoln and Hereford. She complained in detail of Prioress Katherine Wells and then, to cause her brother what little embarrassment and trouble she could, suggested that his charity to the priory at Hinton might be just as ill-advised as the favor he’d shown to Littlemore.

T
he schedule for each year’s royal progress was published at court in June, listing all the proposed stops and the dates the court would be at each. Visits could last anywhere from one night to three weeks, and the distance the whole entourage traveled in a day ranged from five to nearly twenty miles. Since leaving Windsor Castle in mid-July, the king and his court had visited Northampton and Harrowden, stayed at Pipewell Abbey and Lidlington, and spent two nights in the abbey at Leicester, some fifteen miles from Ashby de la Zouch. Now they were settled in at Nottingham Castle, where they would remain until the end of the month.

They were too close for George’s comfort—only about eighteen miles from Ashby de la Zouch.

Nottingham was a large town, well built, with perhaps the finest marketplace in all of England. The town’s main street was extremely wide and evenly paved. George’s route took him across an arched stone bridge and into the town from the south, then westward, to where an imposing stone castle dominated a rocky hill above the River Leen.

George could understand why Nottingham Castle had been selected to house the king. It was sturdily built, both outside and in. He rode
across a bridge over the ditch that separated the outer from the inner wards. It was said to be protected not only by the portcullis, but also by the carvings of beasts and giants on the pillars. He did not set much store by such superstitious nonsense, especially when he noted that the buildings on the western side of the inner ward were in terrible disrepair.

On the north side a new stone tower rose to three stories and was topped by an upper floor of timber. It boasted large, semicircular bay windows that were both imposing and beautiful to look at. Peering down at him from one of them was a familiar face. Lady Boleyn lifted a hand in greeting, then promptly disappeared. George was not surprised to see her reappear in the courtyard a few minutes later.

“What news of your wife, Lord Hastings?”

“Lady Anne is well.” George would have gone on into the tower in search of the king had she not taken a firm grip on his arm.

“It has been some time since I heard from her,” Lady Boleyn said.

“I was not aware that she had written to you at all.”

Bess Boleyn’s eyes narrowed and went cold, although her smile remained in place. “She is a dear friend, Lord Hastings. I care deeply about her.”

He stopped trying to free himself to stare at her in astonishment. Did she think he
beat
Anne? Quite the opposite was true. He pampered his wife. He had forgiven her for her transgression. Why, just during the last few weeks, he’d arranged all manner of entertainments for her, even hiring a troupe of players to stay for a week and perform their entire repertoire. He thought Anne was softening toward him, too. He knew with certainty that she was looking forward to the birth of their child. If she worried that, like the last, it would not survive, she never let her fears show.

“I assure you, madam,” George told Lady Boleyn, “that my lady wife is in good health and fine spirits.”

“Then why is she not with you?”

“She is expecting a child in November, Lady Boleyn. A long and tiresome journey would not be good for the babe.”

“Nonsense. It is healthy to take some exercise when one is increasing.”

“The roads between Ashby de la Zouch and Nottingham are not the best. Even in a litter, she would be most uncomfortable.”

Lady Boleyn was obliged to take his word for it, but she continued to look skeptical.

Fearing that she might be contemplating a visit to Ashby de la Zouch, the very thing he had come to Nottingham hoping to discourage, George hastily added, “She wishes to live quietly, without visitors, for these last months before she is delivered, having lost the previous child.”

“I thought you said she was in good health.”

“She wishes to
remain
so.”

He felt a twinge of guilt, as he always did when he thought of the boy who had died. He had his doubts about the child’s paternity, and had been relieved that he would not have to spend the rest of his life bearing the burden of doubt about his heir’s legitimacy. Still, the loss of a life, any life, troubled him deeply. He had left Anne afterward—nearly eight months ago now—and gone back to court. When he’d returned to Ashby de la Zouch, richer by a loan from the king of one thousand pounds, he had been determined to reclaim her affection. The loan, he’d suspected, had been a bribe to encourage him to leave court. He’d had no problem accepting. He’d found court life exceedingly dull without Anne there with him.

He was anxious to return to her now. It had taken him months to get her to soften toward him. She’d never denied him his rights, but until recently there had always been an aloofness about her, even in bed. He did not want to risk losing the gains he had made, and he did not want her distracted by old “friends” from court.

“I must make myself known to the king,” he said, gently disengaging Lady Boleyn’s grip on his arm. “Is His Grace within, or out hunting?”

“He rode into Sherwood Forest at the break of day.”

George was not surprised.

“He took
all
his favorites with him,” Lady Boleyn continued.
“Charles Brandon. My brother, Lord Edward Howard. Tom Knyvett. Ned Neville.
Will Compton
.”

George kept his expression bland. Lady Boleyn rambled on, filling him in on the latest news of court and courtiers. Compton and Brandon were at odds, vying for first place in the king’s affections. Thomas Wolsey, the priest who had married George and Anne, was now the king’s confessor. Compton’s sister had made an excellent marriage. George hadn’t known that Compton had a sister and did not much care.

At length, the hunting party returned and George duly made himself known to King Henry. He was greeted with indifference, which suited him well. Compton also pretended a lack of interest, although George strongly suspected that the other man longed to ask after Anne.

“The Hastings title will have an heir come November,” George announced, and was pleased to see a sour look on his rival’s face.

The king made the expected responses, and accepted without comment George’s statement that Lady Anne was well but disinclined to entertain visitors. That should settle the matter, George thought. No one from court would intrude upon their privacy.

He was in a cheerful frame of mind as he prepared to return home. Seeing Compton enter the stable yard, he called out a friendly greeting. “You should take a wife yourself, Will,” he added. “Marriage has much to recommend it.”

“I have been considering it,” Compton said.

George rode back to Ashby de la Zouch in excellent spirits. . . until he reconsidered Compton’s words and realized that the wife the other man intended to take might be his own.

M
adge Geddings glanced up from her embroidery frame in alarm when the Duke of Buckingham stalked into the private room situated between his dining chamber and his bedchamber. Madge wondered what had gone wrong at the meeting with the monk at Hinton Priory.

Buckingham’s lips, compressed into a hard, thin line, relaxed a little when he caught sight of her. The vein in his forehead stopped throbbing. Slowly, she rose, dipping into a curtsey. The duke liked such displays of servitude, even from the woman who warmed his bed at night. Perhaps especially from her.

He raised her up, then jerked her into his arms for a heated kiss.

“My lord!” she exclaimed with a teasing laugh. “It is the middle of the day!”

Since they both had fond memories of other afternoons, and mornings, too, he only grinned at her.

Madge reached up to touch his smooth cheek with her fingertips. “What troubles you, Edward. Is there aught I can do to help?”