Keeper of the King's Secrets (5 page)

“He is.” Simon took her satchel and gave a startled “oomph” at its weight.

“Then how can he want her immediately?”

“He wants her to illuminate a document he sent me to deliver to Cardinal Wolsey. The Cardinal is impatient to send it off, but cannot until Susanna has done her work.”

Susanna stepped around Peter Jack, toward the door. “And it
is
my work, what I was brought to London to do.”

Simon stepped around Peter Jack as well. From the corner of her eye, Susanna saw him tug gently at Peter Jack’s ear. “Well, are you coming, or will you stand there glowering until we get back?”

“I’m coming.” Peter Jack’s words were stiff.

Susanna turned to soothe his worry, knowing he blamed himself for not being with her when she was attacked, and caught him sliding a knife up his sleeve. She gaped. Did Parker have them all doing it?

He caught her shocked expression. “Can’t protect you with my bare hands. Or not as well.” He straightened, and Susanna could see an edge of steel in the set of his shoulders. He looked older than his fifteen years now—sure and confident, where before he’d looked frail and fragile, with old, old eyes.

She wondered if his eyes would ever lose that look.

“I hope you won’t have to protect me at all, but it is good you’re coming. Parker won’t have cause to be as cross.” She looked over to Simon, who was waiting impatiently at the door. “Can you tell Mistress Greene which part of the palace I will be in, so Parker knows how to find us?”

“Aye.” He clamped his jaw down with a sharp click, then turned down the passage to the kitchen. As she and Peter Jack followed behind him, she heard him speaking easily enough to Parker’s housekeeper.

“Thought you weren’t to go anywhere.” Mistress Greene’s mouth was a thin line.

“Order of the King.” Susanna shrugged. “I know he’ll be furious, but what can I do?”

“Nothing. And time is wasting.” Simon went to the back door and held it open.

“I’ll tell the master.” Mistress Greene picked up her bread dough and slapped it hard on the counter. “Though I hope you get back before he does.”

Susanna lifted a hand to her neck and smoothed the cut with uneasy fingers. “That would be best, but it won’t happen if I’m to do the illumination at the Cardinal’s office.” She darted a quick look at Simon, and he nodded confirmation. “Then I’ll be back late.”

Simon gave a meaningful sweep of his arm.

“I’m coming.” She looked across at Peter Jack. “Ready?”

He nodded. “I’d rather face whoever is out there than Parker when he finds us both gone.”

“’Tis me and Eric’ll have to face him.” Mistress Greene
looked to the door just as Eric slipped under Simon’s arm, coming in from the backyard.

“Face who?”

“She’s leaving the house,” Peter Jack told his younger brother.

“Oh?” Eric rubbed the back of his head. “Oh!” He looked over at Simon. “Can I come, too?”

“No, you don’t. I’m not facing him alone.” Mistress Greene worked the dough.

“For heaven’s sake. It is by order of the King.” Susanna went to the door. “Parker will understand. He would do the same.”

She took the steps down into the yard, hoping she was right.

And it has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain or unstable as fame or power not founded on its own strength.

—Machiavelli
, The Prince,
chapter 13

“M
istress Horenbout.” Cardinal Wolsey’s nod was curt as Simon ushered her into his office and announced her. The Cardinal’s eyes were fish-cold and as fathomless, and she suppressed a shiver.

“Your Grace.” She curtsied deeply and saw his hand clench with impatience.

“This missive must go out as soon as you are done. Can I impress upon you, madame, that in this case it is better to have a simple, elegant drawing than an intricate one?” He indicated a sloped, empty desk near the window, and she liked the way the light fell on it to the left, so her hand would not cast a shadow on her work. It would do nicely.

It was past midday, but she would have a good few hours of daylight left.

She held out her hand to Simon for her satchel, then hefted it onto the table.

The Cardinal flicked the back of his hand at Simon. “Be gone.”

With a regretful quirk of his lips, Simon backed out of the room. As he closed the door, Susanna saw Peter Jack peering in for a quick look at the Cardinal’s chambers.

She smiled. The thick, luxurious carpets from Turkey, the jewel-colored wall hangings, and the gleaming wood furniture would not have disappointed him. She had been in the King’s closet in this same palace, and she would say the Cardinal’s had cost more to furnish than the King’s.

She set about lining her pigments along the top of the desk, setting out her clean mussel shells for mixing, then took out her pencils, pens, and scrapers. She looked across at the Cardinal expectantly.

He picked the missive up, and then set it down again as if changing his mind about giving it to her.

She kept her face impassive.

He looked across at her, and then slowly lifted the thick roll of parchment again and held it out to her. “Here.”

She rose and took it before he could snatch it back; then she sat down and rolled it out carefully. The writing was in the King’s hand, and he had left her a good amount of space for her illumination, about a third of the width of the parchment.

She began to read.

“What are you doing?” Wolsey’s shout made her jerk.

She stared at him. “Reading the first paragraph.”

His eyes widened, surprised, no doubt, that she
could
read. “For what reason?”

Susanna frowned. “So I have a sense of the contents. The painting needs to reflect the document.”

“It is merely a congratulatory letter to the Emperor Charles on his victory over the French king. That is all you need to know.”

Susanna met his gaze and then dipped her head. “As you wish, Your Grace.” Her hand smoothed the parchment, trembling a little. She was to illuminate a missive for the Holy Roman Emperor. The man who ruled most of Europe.

She focused on the parchment, blocking out the space the King had left for the first letter of the missive, the
D
in
Deus
, and planning a short border that ran across the top and a little way down both sides of the document.

She loved the scratch of the charcoal on the parchment as she designed the border decoration—Tudor roses and the pomegranate of Katherine of Aragon on twisting, climbing vines, intertwined with birds, hunting hounds, and a cat whose paw she placed between the lines of writing, as if it were about to walk across the page.

Then she went to work on the
D
and the image she’d decided to include inside the letter—a miniature portrait of the King himself. She had drawn him twice before, and her charcoal moved with sure, swift strokes.

When she had done the rough sketches, she looked longingly at the gold leaf, but there wasn’t time to mix the gesso.
Instead she would have to use powdered gold mixed with gum arabic, and that would wait until last.

She heard the door open, heard a murmured exchange, and vaguely registered that someone had placed a cup and a jug on the windowsill for her.

She carefully began inking the portrait, adding the first color, purple, for Henry’s doublet. She frowned when she realized she couldn’t see as well now, lifted her head, and blinked. The sun was setting and she could see herself reflected in the fine, expensive glass of the window. She rubbed her eyes and arched her back, lifting her shoulders and wincing at their stiffness.

A small movement caught her eye, and she turned to find Wolsey staring at her. The back of her neck pricked, and she found herself hunching over, as if to force his gaze away from her breasts.

“I need more light.” Her voice was rough, her throat parched, and she reached for the watered wine that had been left for her.

Wolsey cleared his throat as she sipped and looked down at his papers. “There are candles in that cupboard over there.”

She rose, wanting to stretch, to lift her arms above her head, but the hot, dark look in Wolsey’s eyes when she had caught him staring made that impossible.

She pulled a tapestry across the window. Despite the glass, cold seeped into the room, and she felt instantly warmer as she twitched it into place.

She lined the desk with as many candles as practical.

Had Parker come? She had not heard him outside the door, but it was comforting to know Simon and Peter Jack were just beyond in the antechamber. And that Wolsey knew that, too.

Despite the lust she had seen on his face, he surely wouldn’t try anything when a single cry from her would bring in two protectors.

She looked across at him, but his head was bent to his work and he did not look up. The tension in her neck and shoulders eased a little.

She worked on the head and shoulders portrait of Henry, then moved on to the
D
, until she had only the border left to do. She mixed her pigments, working her small stock of lapis lazuli with white until she had a sky blue. The color of loyalty, of dependability. However fast Wolsey wanted this done, she would put every nuance of her work to the King’s advantage.

The birds, hounds, and cat looked beautiful against the blue; she had used bright jewel colors, and she wanted to scoop them up and let them chase and leap across her palm.

She finished with pen work in powdered gold, adding it first to the miniature portrait to create gold embroidery on Henry’s shirt and doublet.

She had plenty of gold left, since she was planning to use it for the border, but she suddenly decided, extravagantly, to also use it in the letter
D.
To thread the whole letter with gold. It would frame the head and shoulders of the King beautifully.

She picked up her pen and began on the intricacies of her design. The Italian flourishes and curves, the tiny bracelet of cameos around the middle of the stem and the outer curve of
the
D
, one of the King, the other of the Queen. It was so finely rendered, she doubted many would notice it, but it gave her pleasure to know it was there.

No doubt Wolsey would consider the time she had spent on it to be time wasted.

At last she moved to the border, and traced the Tudor roses and the pomegranates of the Queen in gold as well. Finally, she added a tiny gold bell around the cat’s neck, to warn the birds of its approach.

Finished, she leaned back, closing her eyes and rolling her shoulders. Then she stood and, without looking at Wolsey, walked to the door and back.

She looked down at her work and thought it was good, and, given the time she had had, no ill reflection on her or her father’s atelier.

“It is done?” Wolsey sat in shadow, and she wondered how long ago he had put his papers aside and begun watching her. When he had let his candle go out.

She nodded, sorry the King would never see this letter before it was sent. He was always a most appreciative patron, and he seemed to enjoy discussing her techniques with her.

Wolsey stood and crossed over to her.

She took a step back to give him better light, but also to put some distance between them.

Wolsey stared down, and when he turned to her his mouth was as severe as ever. She wondered, suddenly, if it was not the wait to have the document illuminated that so enraged him, but rather the document itself.

“When will it be dry enough to roll and seal?”

“If you leave it in a warm room, it will be dry by morning.”

He gritted his teeth. “Very well. You may leave.”

Susanna moved forward and began to pack her things away. Wolsey stood too close and she took less care than she would usually have done, hastily shoving everything back into her satchel.

He lifted a hand and for a moment she thought he was going to strike her, and she jerked back.

He stood, fingers extended, as if to brush her cheek, but his eyes were anything but tender. “Whatever you read while you worked on that document, I trust you will take care not to repeat.”

Susanna nodded, a tight, sharp movement, and lifted her satchel. “Good evening, Your Grace.”

He ignored her farewell. “That document was written by the King in his own hand, and read only by me. If you talk, I will know.” He seemed to gather himself, as if to leap at her, a monster from a medieval illumination with crimson cloak swirling.

There was a sharp knock at the door, and Susanna felt her knees give a little in relief. Parker?

Wolsey kept watching her, not turning to the door as he called in answer, “Be gone.”

Susanna put her arm behind her and flicked it; felt the new knife Parker had given her slip securely into her palm.

The door swung open, and Wolsey spun in rage. “I said, be gone, Simon Carter.”

“Who is Simon Carter?” The man who stood in the door was a nobleman, in a rich velvet doublet. Susanna watched Wolsey’s demeanor change in a blink, from fury to cold disdain.

She moved closer to the wall, skirting it on a path to the door, grateful her satchel had already been over her shoulder. Wolsey flicked a look in her direction, but he could do nothing to stop her.