The Boleyn Deceit (21 page)

“Elizabeth,
la plus belle princesse
…” She could quite get used to this. In England, she was always one step behind William. And though she knew intellectually that this extravagant welcome and praise from the French was mostly due to their desire to impress her brother, she let herself be flattered and dream a little of what it might be like to be adored solely for herself.

The opening grand banquet, given the second day after their arrival, was exquisite in both food and ritual. Although much of the elaborate solemnity amused Elizabeth, it also delighted her. For the first time in months she gave herself up solely to the pleasures of the moment—one of which was upstaging her cousin, Mary of Scotland. Mary might be Queen Regnant of Scotland and the future Queen of France, but Elizabeth was the honoured guest tonight, and thus had pride of place at the high table next to King Henri. She admitted, grudgingly, that her cousin was lovely—unusually tall for her age and with the distinct red-gold hair of her Tudor grandmother—but at twelve, Mary was little more than a girl with a promise of beauty. Elizabeth held every advantage at this dinner and she reveled in it.

To be fair, Mary was gracious and professed herself ecstatic to meet Elizabeth. “It is my greatest wish, cousin, to be united with England in both faith and friendship.”

United faith would never happen, not with the Scots queen’s ardent Catholicism. And though friendship looked possible just now with both she and William intending matrimonial ties with the French, that also would be shattered the moment William broke the treaty. But whatever else might happen, Mary Stuart had been Scotland’s queen since she was six days old, and her actions in future might make all the difference to England’s precarious security. The entire point of her being at the French court, being groomed as France’s future queen, was to make
permanent the
auld alliance
of France and Scotland. England would be under enormous pressure when the French king could claim to rule part of their own island.

The dancing that followed the banquet was elaborate, but Elizabeth was beginning to see beneath the surface to the universal similarities of royal courts. Fontainebleau was impressive, but tone down the dazzle just a bit and it was not much different from Greenwich or Richmond or Whitehall. Look beneath the fabulous jewels and the ostentatious fashions that made the men like peacocks and the women like statues, and the types were ones Elizabeth had known all her life: the hangers-on, the empty-headed, the flatterers, and the rare possessors of true ability.

She danced with King Henri and with his son, the dauphin (who, at eleven years old, was highly impressed by his own dignity). She danced with handsome, charming men of Valois and Navarre and Orléans, flirted brilliantly with the Admiral of France, and finally found herself dancing with a man she’d heard about from both her brother and Dominic: Vicomte Renaud LeClerc.

“It is a great pleasure to meet you, Your Highness,” he began, in very good English.

She answered him in French. “The pleasure is mine, as my brother’s representative. I am glad to be a symbol of honourable peace between us.”

“Do you think all peace honourable?”

“Do you?” Elizabeth shot back.

He smiled with delight. “It depends on the peace, Your Highness, and on the fight. Honour can be found in almost any circumstance.”

“Now that does sound like someone I know. No wonder Lord Exeter speaks so highly of you.”

LeClerc chuckled. “Dominic is a good man, though perhaps a trifle serious for one his age.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“So serious in fact that I wonder, Your Highness, if our dear friend
le duc
chafes at being charged with—though honourable—such a light duty.”

She could read his subtext as clearly as if he’d shouted it.
What else is he here for?
LeClerc was asking. Although Elizabeth had the same question, she refused to dwell on it. She could guess why Dominic was in France.

LeClerc continued with a seemingly unrelated question. “Now that your royal brother’s matrimonial future is secure, he will be looking to secure your own happiness next,
non
?”

Elizabeth found herself looking for Dominic and, finding him deep in conversation with the Duc de Guise, suppressed a sigh. Who else might Dominic be tasked with speaking to on this trip? And what choices would she be presented with when they returned to England? She knew as well as her brother that the Spanish kept an ambassador at the French court.

For one painful second the thought of Robert pierced through her, but then she walled it off. Between Dominic’s probable charge to approach her future Spanish husband and the royal hopes and plans of both Mary Stuart and Elisabeth de France, she could not afford to be sidetracked into thinking about Robert.

Her resolve lasted less than twelve hours. For when Minuette joined her for a late breakfast the next day, Elizabeth had just received a missive from Robert Dudley.

Minuette watched her read, then asked, “What does Robert have to say?”

“That being on progress with William is remarkably similar to a battlefield: uncomfortable lodgings, indifferent food, and surprise ambushes from aggressive females who are more trouble
than even enemy soldiers.” Elizabeth tossed the letter onto the table, amidst the plated gold dishes. “Although Robert is not precise about whether the aggressive females confine their ambushes solely to my brother.”

Minuette correctly sensed Elizabeth’s mood. She said quietly, “Robert doesn’t trouble to write solely to tease. Which is all that is, you know.”

“I do know,” Elizabeth said. “But does it not bother
you
? Knowing that William is constantly besieged by women who want whatever they can have of him?”

Two years ago Elizabeth would have wagered that she could name any one of Minuette’s thoughts simply by reading her expressions. But that had changed, and now she could only go by Minuette’s words. “I don’t dwell upon it, Elizabeth. I assure you, I do not spend my days eaten up with jealousy over William.”

Elizabeth meant to probe deeper, but Minuette said quickly, “So why else did Robert write?”

“Oh, he had a message for me from John Dee.” Elizabeth picked the letter back up and read from it. “ ‘Dr. Dee has many friends in Europe, men of intelligence and experience. He mentioned that one of them might be coming to see you, with a letter of introduction from Lord Burghley.’ ”

“Lord Burghley? From the privy council?”

“The same. I confess, I find myself intrigued to meet someone who commands the interest of men as different as John Dee and William Cecil. Let the attendants know that I am to be notified at once if this man comes calling. His name is Francis Walsingham.”

After bidding farewell to his sister and Minuette in Dover, William had set off on his annual summer progress. This year’s carefully calculated itinerary included stays with both the Earl of
Pembroke and William Cecil, Lord Burghley, as well as a tour of royal castles in Wales. The timing of the various visits and delegations and embassies meant that, for the first time in his life, he celebrated his birthday alone. He was not even at Hampton Court, but at Conwy Castle in North Wales, an imposing but cheerless military structure that made him all the more restless for missing Minuette. And not just her—Elizabeth was as much a part of his life as breathing, and Dominic was always and ever his most trusted voice. William had plenty of hangers-on for this progress, but no one he trusted half as much as Dominic.

Except, from time to time, his uncle.

Today he needed to trust someone, for he had before him a royal execution warrant awaiting his signature. William studied the single sheet, though he knew it by heart. It ordered the death by burning of Edmund Bonner, once Bishop of London, convicted now of heresy and treason.

“Why not the axe?” William asked his uncle once more. “The heresy charge only matters because of the treason attached to it. I am no pedant, insisting on the uniformity of private conscience.”

“But many of your people do so insist, including some of your chief advisors,” Rochford answered grimly. “At least insofar as such private conscience is expressed in words. The axe is not as fearsome as the fire, Your Majesty. You should begin as you mean to go on, and Bonner’s death at the stake will set a bar for dissent that the Catholics will know they cannot cross.”

William stared at the signatures already on the warrant—every member of the privy council except one. He was glad Dominic was in France, for he was not absolutely certain that his friend would have signed. But Dom is not king, he thought, and with that he scrawled
Henry Rex
in bold letters at the bottom of the warrant.

“See to it,” he told his uncle, handing it over. “And while you are burning Bonner, I will head east and visit my sister, Mary, at Beaulieu. I would not have her hear of this by report, but from my own conviction.”

“That is wise, Your Majesty. Afterward, you will continue on to Kenninghall?”

“Might as well get all the Catholic wrath over with at once. And remind the Howards that I continue to hold their fortunes in my hand.”

“And … the child?” Rochford asked delicately.

For all of the Howards were at Kenninghall awaiting the royal visit, including Eleanor and the little girl born last year who was almost certainly his child. William was uneasy about seeing Eleanor again after the unresolved incident with the adder in Minuette’s room, but it seemed only right to at least set eyes on the child. He wondered who she looked like, and if he would feel anything for her.

But his uncle didn’t need to know that. “I’m going to Kenninghall to intimidate the new Duke of Norfolk. My personal affairs are not part of it.”

“So you say. Perhaps one day you will learn better.”

“Don’t,” William warned.

“It is my duty to advise you, and I will do so no matter how unpleasant the task. A king has no personal affairs. Everything you do affects England.”

“I never forget that. Nor do I ever forget that, by God’s will, I
am
king.”

“By God’s will, and your grandfather’s battles.”

“Choose your words carefully, Uncle.”

“Edward IV thought it God’s will that he be king, and so did his bloody brother, Richard. But their personal affairs undid
them, allowing your grandfather the opportunity to claim the throne.”

“The throne that was his by right.”

“Rights do not always enter into it, William.” Rochford rarely called him by name. “Thrones are won and held by many means. The Catholics believe your throne is Mary’s by right. By our rights, the Scots throne is legally yours, but has thus far required more force than we can muster to hold it. Ireland you hold by force alone. Those with power will always trump those with mere right on their side.”

“I know this, Uncle. I have listened to you over the years, despite what you may think. Just because I don’t always take your advice—”

“This isn’t all about you!”

William rocked back in his seat, staring at Rochford’s furious face. Part of him was instantly ten years old, cowed and desperate to please. That part wanted Elizabeth or Dominic to stand up for him, wanted to run away with Minuette to make him laugh and remind him he was king.

That part vanished in a wave of icy rage.

“Do tell, Lord Rochford: if being king isn’t about me, then whom is it about?”

“Do you have any idea what your mother went through to get you where you are today? What it cost her in pride and security? The price my family paid?” His uncle did not back down, pressing his point, and William wondered how long he’d been wanting to say these things.

“The price you paid to be the most powerful family in England?” William let his voice cut through in the very way he’d learned from Rochford. “Tell me, Uncle, what exactly is it you think the King of England owes you?”

Something not fear, not surprise, not anything he could name, flashed in his uncle’s eyes. “To remember who you are and who you have always been meant to be. Your Majesty.”

“My father’s son,” William answered, biting off each word.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Go back to London. I will not need you again on this progress.”

His temper lasted through Rochford’s obedient if resentful departure the next morning, up until a courier brought letters from France. When William saw Minuette’s distinctive handwriting, he dismissed his attendants with a sullen wave. Tossing the other dozen letters the courier had brought onto a table, he broke the seal of Minuette’s and read.

Minuette

William smiled as he read, for he could almost hear Minuette’s lilting voice speaking the words she had written. Brief as the letter was, its effect was enough to ease the pain in his shoulders and neck and remind him that he had at least one pleasant thing in a life otherwise burdened by duty and treachery.