At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) (33 page)

“Mother and I live with her now,” Margaret informed her. She took a step closer, peering up at Anne’s face. “Are you Lady Anne?” At Anne’s nod she looked pleased with herself. “I thought so. Mother hopes you will be able to visit us while you are here.”

“Tell her I will try.”

But even as she spoke, she caught sight of Bess Boleyn hurrying past the entrance to the great hall. The king was staying at Penshurst on his summer progress and the house was crowded with courtiers. Queen Catherine had become more demanding since she’d given birth to another daughter, one who’d lived only a few hours, instead of the much-hoped-for son and heir. Her Grace expected all her ladies to attend her when she took her morning stroll in the gardens. Reluctantly, Anne tore herself away from the stone men and the real girl.

Anne and George had returned to their duties at court earlier in the year, after the birth of their Dorothy, yet another healthy child to add to the Hastings nursery. Anne had been away nearly two years and had enjoyed her respite from the round of royal pageants, tournaments, disguisings, and hunts.

Not all of that time had been spent rusticating at Ashby de la Zouch or Stoke Poges with the children. There had been numerous family gatherings at Thornbury and Bletchingly and Penshurst, in particular
to celebrate the weddings of her brother’s son, Lord Stafford, and his daughter, Lady Mary. Anne’s nephew had wed Lady Ursula Pole, daughter of the Countess of Salisbury. It had been a mark of royal favor that the Duke of Buckingham’s son had made such a prestigious match. Like the Staffords, Lady Ursula had royal blood in her veins.

Further proof of the king’s love had come in the form of generous “rewards” from the privy purse to Buckingham, Anne, George, and even Anne’s sister, Elizabeth, and her husband, Lord Fitzwalter. Shortly thereafter, Lady Mary Stafford had made an advantageous match with Lord Bergavenny, Ned Neville’s older brother, becoming Bergavenny’s third wife.

Anne had encountered Madge Geddings at these events, and they had renewed the friendship that had begun when Madge came to Ashby de la Zouch to give birth to little Margaret. Odd as it might seem to someone who did not know both women, Anne felt closer to her brother’s mistress than she did to his wife and exchanged more frequent letters with her. Although it took considerable effort to carve time out of the royal visit to Penshurst to slip away to Mistress Geddings’s cottage, Anne managed it a few hours before the progress was scheduled to depart for the next stop on the itinerary.

“Lady Anne!” Madge cried in delight when she opened the cottage door. “We are honored.”

“How could I come here and not seek you out?” The two women embraced and Madge drew her deeper inside, where Margaret sat at a table with her tutor and her lessons and Madge’s aged mother occupied a wheeled chair drawn up close to the hearth, even though it was too warm a day for a fire. She stared at them through cloudy eyes that had long since lost the ability to see. Her hearing, however, was excellent.

“Is that little Lady Anne?” she demanded in a querulous voice. “Why, I remember you when you were a babe in swaddling clothes.” She made a clucking noise. “Never knew your father, did you? What a terrible time that was. Him under arrest and executed and your brothers harried into hiding and your poor mother forced to remarry will she, nil she. Did you know Dame Delabere—well, she was not married to
him yet, only the nursery maid when all this happened—protected the young duke by dressing him up in female clothing so the soldiers would not find him?”

“Lady Anne does not want to hear about the distant past, Mother,” Madge interrupted. Her cheeks had turned a bright, embarrassed pink.

“On the contrary,” Anne said with a laugh. “I am entranced by this particular tale. Female clothing, you say? Did he wear false hair, too?”

Goodwife Geddings’s stories took up most of the rest of the visit, for she remembered a time Anne could not, as well as the mother Anne had barely known. It was only when Anne was about to take her leave that she realized how uncharacteristically quiet Madge had been throughout.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. “If Edward has reneged on his promises to you—”

“Oh, no! He would not.”

Anne thought her naïve. The time would undoubtedly come when Edward would tire of Madge and send her away. Still, it would do Anne no good to warn her friend of the inevitable. Madge would not listen. For some inexplicable reason, she truly loved the Duke of Buckingham.

As if Madge had read Anne’s thoughts, she launched into a catalog of Edward’s virtues. “He has always been most kind and considerate. You know that, my lady. Has he not kept on all of Lady Mary’s tutors to educate my Margaret? And he has promised to contract a great marriage for her. He has hopes of obtaining the wardship of a younger son of the late Earl of Kildare. If he does, he means to arrange their betrothal forthwith.”

Anne’s eyebrows lifted slightly at this news. Marrying a duke’s bastard to an earl’s son, even one of the younger ones, was reaching very high indeed. “That will be costly,” she said.

Madge sighed. “So were the weddings of his legitimate children. Your brother has been thinking of selling off some of his manors to pay for them. He will need to raise even more money to meet the expenses of this royal visit.”

“It is a great honor to have the king come to stay.”

“And a great burden, as well. The duke is even desperate enough to deal with some of those he once despised.”

“Never tell me he’s sold land to Cardinal Wolsey?”

The suggestion coaxed a small smile from Madge. “No, but he borrowed money from Sir William Compton and is negotiating to sell him at least two manors, too.”

“Extraordinary,” Anne agreed.

Hearing Will’s name gave her a start. She saw him often, since they were both at court. They had fallen easily back into their old habit of banter and flirtation, although she was never quite as relaxed around him as she once had been. That her brother had borrowed money from Will bothered her. That Will would lend money to his old enemy troubled her even more.

“Edward has never let his disdain for a man prevent him from making a profit,” Madge said.

“That is true,” Anne agreed. “My brother has always spent more time with his ledgers than most noblemen. But what about your future, Madge? Has Edward made provision for you?”

“He has been generous with both annuities and gifts of land.” Madge’s gaze shifted away from Anne, as if she had some thought she wished to hide.

Curious, Anne would have delved more deeply, but at just that moment the trumpets sounded to announce the departure of the royal progress. She left Penshurst without discovering why Madge had, of a sudden, become evasive. Amid the bustle and constant confusion of life on progress, she soon forgot the incident entirely.

M
adge Geddings went down to the stables attached to the house the Duke of Buckingham leased in East Greenwich to check on her mare, Goody, who had returned from their last ride with a limp. For the past year and more, Edward had taken his mistress with him when he traveled. In the duchess’s absence, Madge acted as his hostess and chatelaine. She liked having a horse close by, but it was not always possible. When they stayed in London, their mounts had to be stabled across the Thames in Lambeth at the Sign of the Bear, a great inconvenience. Sometimes Edward even sent his cattle straight back to Penshurst or Thornbury and hired hackneys for himself and his yeomen as needed.

When the court was at Richmond or Greenwich, the duke leased a manor house nearby—at Barnes for Richmond Palace and in East Greenwich for Greenwich Palace—and enjoyed the convenience of all the amenities in one place, although neither could compare to Thornbury, where there was stabling for over a hundred horses, everything from coursers and palfreys to cart horses and sumpters. As Madge fed Goody a carrot, she wondered if the dappled mare ever wished she were back in Gloucestershire.

Once she’d visited awhile with her horse, Madge sought out the
duke’s farrier. He assured her that Goody’s trouble had been caused by a stone in her shoe, which had now been removed. Satisfied, she was about to return to the manor house when Charles Knyvett rode into the yard. Seeing her, he quickly dismounted, flung his reins to a stable boy, and hurried across the cobblestones to intercept her.

“The Duke of Buckingham is in disgrace,” Knyvett announced as he fell into step beside her.

Madge thought he looked entirely too pleased to be delivering such news. She kept walking. “I know already that there was a misunderstanding between the duke and the king, and that, at the king’s command, Cardinal Wolsey reprimanded our master for giving Sir William Bulmer, one of the king’s servants, a Stafford livery badge to wear.”

Edward had been in a temper about that. To be chastised by Wolsey, a butcher’s son from Ipswich, was the worst sort of insult.

“I do not understand why this incident caused such a fuss,” she continued. “Great men are expected to have great retinues. If they do not keep retainers, how else would it be possible to make a good showing at court?”

“Our
master
is too arrogant for his own good,” Knyvett said bluntly. “He does more than dress extravagantly and put imported delicacies on his table. Any sympathy you feel for him is misplaced. It is Bulmer you should pity.”

“Why? What happened to him?”

“Bulmer was hauled before the Privy Council in the Star Chamber and there the king himself took him to task for his misconduct.”

Madge’s eyes widened. She had glimpsed King Henry when the royal progress visited Penshurst. His Grace had a formidable presence and was not a man she’d ever want to anger. Edward in a temper was bad enough.

Knyvett’s small, pale eyes lost focus as he imagined the scene. “He was terrified for his very life. The king told him that he would have none of his servants wear another man’s badge on their sleeve and lectured him on the subject for a good quarter of an hour. Bulmer fell on his knees and pleaded for mercy, but by that time the king had worked
himself into a rage. His Grace turned his back on Bulmer and called for the next case on the agenda. Bulmer remained there, still kneeling, until every other matter had been dealt with by the Privy Council. Not a single councilor dared look at him. Hours passed before the king deigned to notice him again. Then His Grace’s glare had Bulmer convinced that he would end his life in the Tower. Instead the king forgave him and took him back into royal service. ”

Madge frowned. “I still do not understand. Why was accepting the duke’s badge so terrible? And how, simply by giving Bulmer livery, did the duke incur so much royal wrath?”

They had reached the house and entered by way of a side door that led through a storeroom. For the moment, it was empty, but Knyvett still lowered his voice. His color was even higher than was usual for a man with such a florid countenance. “It is against the law for a servant of the Crown to be retained by anyone else. For swearing allegiance to any other master while a man serves the king, he can be charged with treason. As for the rest, that should be obvious even to a female mind—the king and the cardinal suspect the duke of trying to raise a private army.”

“But he is not,” Madge protested. “And even if he were, why is that something to be spoken of only in whispers? When we went to war, the king demanded that all his noblemen raise troops to take with them into France.”

“This is not wartime. Far from it. The king has just signed a treaty of universal peace with both France and Spain. There is even talk of a face-to-face meeting between King Henry and the new French king.”

Madge felt more confused than ever. Why should the king believe Edward would rebel against the Crown? No one at court knew about the monk’s predictions. . . did they?

She felt her chest contract with fear. Had someone betrayed the duke’s secret? She could think of nothing else that would have turned the king against the duke. His Grace had been pleased with the entertainments at Penshurst in August. And less than a fortnight ago, Edward had still been high in the king’s favor. He had been granted the
wardship he’d so desired, the one that would mean a noble husband for Madge’s little Margaret.

No, she told herself. She was in a panic over nothing. This matter of William Bulmer was all a misunderstanding, one that would soon be forgotten. The duke would return to favor. All would be well.

Gathering up her skirts, she hurried toward the stairs that led to Edward’s privy apartments. Knyvett followed close behind her. Once the duke caught sight of him, it was as if Madge did not even exist.

“Is the Bulmer matter resolved?” he demanded.

“It seems to be, my lord.” Knyvett’s manner became subservient, almost obsequious.

“What of my appointment of Ned Neville as steward of my properties in Kent and Surrey? I am to pay him an annuity of five pounds. Surely as devious a mind as the cardinal’s can misconstrue that as a bribe to turn him against the king.”

“He is your new son-in-law’s younger brother, my lord. No one questions the appointment.”

“Nor should they have questioned Bulmer’s wearing of my livery! The king and the cardinal conspire against me. They would send me to the Tower if they could.”

Madge winced. Knyvett, solicitous, assured his master that no one wished him ill.

The duke’s laugh was bitter. “How little
you
know.” Even as both Knyvett and Madge tried to soothe him, his agitation increased. When she touched his arm, he shook her off with barely controlled violence. “If ever I believe I am about to be committed to the Tower of London, the king will have little joy of it!” He all but shouted the words. “I will do to King Henry what my father intended to do to King Richard at Salisbury, I swear it by the blood of our Lord!”

“And what is that, my lord?” A sly look came over Knyvett’s face as he asked the question.

The duke did not notice, but Madge did. Her hands flew to her mouth, as if that muffling gesture might somehow silence her lover, too.