Tarnish (14 page)

Bridewell Palace

1523

19

T
HE MEN OF THE COURT ARE ITCHING FOR WAR.
F
OR BLOOD AND
pain and death and victory. They are like animals, caged. We move to Bridewell, hemmed in by the City, and tensions rise. Trapped between rivers and walls, squeezed by monasteries on either side, the men’s restiveness only partially assuaged by flirtation, cards, and the talk of war.

It doesn’t help that Bridewell was built for beauty and not for strength, with elaborately stacked brick that creates a winding effect up the façade and chimneys. The entire building is striped with windows to rooms two stories high. This palace isn’t a place to attack or defend. It’s a place to see and be seen.

A covered gallery reaches all the way to the monastery of Blackfriars beyond the wall, over the Fleet, slow and sluggish, more of a ditch than a river. Wyatt walks me across on the way to the queen’s rooms, and we stop on the bank of the river to watch the noisome water meandering around a knot of grass and a downed tree.

“Not exactly the Loire,” I say.

Wyatt chuckles. “Nothing lives up to France with you, does it?”

I sigh and look around me.

“Well. Bridewell has its charms. But Greenwich has poky rooms. And Westminster is in desperate need of repair. And Richmond just feels . . . choked. None of them is like Wolsey’s palaces. York Place. Or Hampton Court. And truly, not even those match King François’s plans for Fontainebleau. With frescoes in the galleries!”

“Yes, but what about King Henry’s tapestries?”

I scowl a little, which only seems to provoke mirth in him.

“I suppose they’re beautiful.” I pretend to pout.

“Well, I, for one, don’t believe there’s a place more magnificent than England. The rolling hills. The South Downs. The chalk cliffs of Dover. The forests that cover half of Kent. The river Medway as it flows past Allington. I can’t imagine anything better, or ever wanting to leave it.”

“But you have never seen France.”

“I don’t think I want to. Leaving the land of my birth would be exile. Even to see the beauties of François’s frescoes.”

“Well, you don’t know what you’re missing, Wyatt, sequestering yourself here, when you have all of Europe to explore.”

I find myself staring blankly at Fleet ditch, thinking of all the places I’ve yet to see. Queen Claude, on the nights she would weep after the birth of her annual baby, would claim she wanted to take me—and all her own children—back to her home country of Brittany. She made it sound wild, magical. When I met Leonardo da Vinci, he claimed Florence was the only city a cultured young woman should ever aspire to visit.

I want to see it all. But my life is limited by more than rivers and walls and monasteries. These men have no idea what being trapped really feels like. Only my words can set me free, and only when the right person hears them.

We continue through the gate and outer court. The royal apartments are accessed by a grand processional stair, facing the courtyard like a dancer ready to perform. There is no hall; instead the stair opens immediately into the watching chamber, and from there we curve to the right to the queen’s north-side rooms. The ceilings soar above us, but the structure still feels subdued by the king’s rooms above. As if the men are pressing down on us.

Perhaps it is just my imagination.

Their restlessness is catching. I sense it as soon as I enter the room. Even Jane has laid down her needlework and is twisting her hands in her lap. It feels like the court is a pot near the boil.

I think about George’s comment that girls are no fun. That we don’t know how to do anything. I sneak a look at the men by the door, sitting at the gaming table. The betting is tense and furious.

They’re playing primero, a game Father taught us all to play as children. George and I regularly challenged each other, claiming the loser was the “girl.” From the look on his face now, he’s winning.

Momentarily, I consider not going over. Not intruding. Letting George win alone.

But I want to show him that girls are smarter than he thinks they are.

More than that, I want to do something that makes me feel less powerless.

I walk to the table. George is hunched over his cards, his back curved like a bent bow—taut and ready to spring. Butler sits opposite him, his cards bending in the tension of his grip while he glowers at our approach.

Henry Percy tries to rise, causing the entire table to look up at me.

“Don’t bestir yourselves, gentlemen.” I wave an airy hand. “I’m just here to watch. Card games are beyond my ken.”

I ignore George’s snort of blatant suspicion.

“Would you like to learn, Mistress Boleyn?” Henry Percy’s eyes are eager.

“Mistress Boleyn has a habit of making ill-advised wagers.” Wyatt takes an empty seat next to George.

“So do you, Wyatt.” George doesn’t look at him.

“Not a game for ladies,” Butler growls.

“Then it’s a good thing you don’t find me very ladylike,” I tell him, and cordially thank Percy, who gets me a stool and seats me next to him.

I flash Wyatt a smile, but he doesn’t catch it.

“Do you know the game, Mistress Boleyn?” Percy’s words tickle my ear. He’s sitting very close. His clothes smell of cedar, sharp and sneezy.

“I’ve played before,” I say.

Men like girls to be helpless, I remind myself, noticing the disappointment on his face. They want to instruct. To advise.
To own.

“But it’s been a long time,” I add. “I may need assistance.”

I bite back my impatience as Percy tells me the point value of each card, how the hands and combinations are ranked.

“Jesus wept, Percy, are you in or not?”

Wyatt’s hiss cuts through the room. The tension in his shoulders has increased. I widen my eyes at him, but he still won’t look at me.

“I’ll join in the next round.”

Percy leans closer, one arm encircling my shoulders so he can use the fingers of that hand to indicate the cards I hold. If I leaned just a little to the right, my cheek would brush his. I settle slightly, my back pressing into the curve of his arm. He drops it abruptly, his face pink.

Too much. Too soon.

I look at Wyatt again, hoping for some instruction. But his face is blank. Unreadable. He’s playing his own game. Not mine.

Butler kicks the table leg, startling me so I look at him. He shows his teeth.

“Let’s play,” he says.

I know the game inside and out, but I am a little rusty. I make a couple of ill-advised moves. Percy corrects me. Gently. I murmur praise at him and he blushes again. Really, he is too easy.

“Sharing secrets?” Butler growls. “Perhaps you should sit next to me. I won’t give special treatment.”

The edge to his voice is shocking. Like a dousing with cold water.

“I like where I am, thank you,” I reply. “Where I can see you.”

Wyatt smothers a laugh.

And for a while, we simply play the game. I get lost in the heady feeling of gambling away my savings. Taking risks. Having fun.

When I raise the stakes again, I look at George. And for once, I see that he remembers, too. Remembers our childhood. Remembers that when we played against each other then, it didn’t matter who won. What mattered was who made the biggest bet.

“You’re as quick as a man,” Wyatt says when I throw my next card down.

“There are some women who know how to play,” I say, looking between him and George. “We’re not only good for sewing and family services.”

Norris whistles when I wager again. “You play like the king.”

I vibrate with a warm memory of the king’s hand on my waist.

“Except that when the stakes are high, she doesn’t lose,” Wyatt mutters.

“You should be careful what you wager,” Percy says quietly, dismay sprawled across his expression. “And not call attention to it. Play only within your means. And your teaching.”

“Have I surpassed your instruction?” I ask innocently. “Is there not more you can teach me?” I raise an eyebrow suggestively, giddy from all the attention.

Color deepens the shadows on his face. I’m beginning to enjoy making Henry Percy blush.

“You do need teaching,” Butler says. “Maybe a caning will keep you in your place.”

The table goes silent. Not one of them looks up from his cards. Not Percy, who has gone so still beside me, it’s like he’s trying to render himself invisible. Not George, who studiously runs his fingers along the coins in front of him on the table. Not even Wyatt.

Fear and anger well within me, pressing me tight against the stays of my bodice. Do they agree with Butler? That a woman should be seen and not heard? Should sit back and let others win?

Then Wyatt steals a glance at me. Slants his eyes sideways at Butler.

“I say, James”—the quiet humor in his voice freezes the men around us even more—“to whom will go that pleasure?”

George snorts and Norris brays, the lecherous light returning to his eyes when he looks at me. Percy’s cards flutter in his hands like a fan.

Butler overturns his stool in his haste to withdraw, and he pushes roughly past Wyatt on his way to the door.

The entire table turns to me. Expectantly.

“I may not know my place . . .” I say quietly. I stand and lay my cards down, face up—a chorus of kings.

The men look from the cards to me.

“But I believe I know when I’ve won.”

I pocket the coins and leave the room.

20

I
CROSS THE YARD, HEADING TO THE GARDENS, THE ONLY PATCH
of green in this pile of stone and mud. But it is all in shadow, and as the sun goes down, the air turns bitterly cold. English springtime.

I tuck my hands inside my sleeves. The duchess may say what she likes about the awkward length of them, but at least my sleeves keep me warm. Or warmish.

“I don’t know what to do,” I say when I hear footsteps approach. Without even looking, I know it’s Wyatt. I knew he’d come. “He gets more proprietary every day.” Every day that brings my father’s footsteps closer to court.

“You could poison him.”

“What?”
I turn.

“It’s the only way to remove the possibility permanently. It also sets your father up nicely to claim the earldom of Ormond unchallenged. I’m sure he’d support the scheme.”

I wouldn’t put anything past my father.

“There is no way I will resort to something so evil, so brutal. . . .”

I see little puffs of breath coming from Wyatt’s nostrils as he tries not to laugh out loud.

“Well, if you’re not going to take my problems seriously . . .” I turn away and suppress a giggle of my own. Me, a poisoner. Ridiculous.