The Queen's Rival (15 page)

“We are not to refuse His Highness’s invitations. You and Father told me so yourselves that he and his friends enjoy the social company of pretty girls.
Be always at the ready to obey the king and queen
, was what you said,” Bess defended, remembering the king’s gaze upon her during the hunt earlier that day, but refusing even now to think of it as anything more than a game.

“You have done what is right, child,” said her father, calmly intervening. “The act of balancing the varying motives and ambitions here is difficult at best, and we are enormously proud of you.”

She felt a small sliver of relief, which made her smile.

“Only take care that nothing you do insults the queen, since it is our family connection to her household, through Mountjoy, that allows you and your mother to attend at court in the first place,” said John.

“I love the queen. It is always my honor to serve her,” Bess returned, meaning it. What she did not say was how greatly she envied Katherine of Aragon for the man she had captured and would have, forever.

After their reunion, Bess returned to her room as her parents went to get settled in. Bess still had not changed her costume from the hunt, and she could not go into the queen’s apartments wearing dusty shoes or a riding hood. She half expected to see Gil still there with Elizabeth when she returned. Because of his connection to Wolsey, he was such a fixture in these chambers and corridors whenever she and Elizabeth were there. And secretly she did enjoy his company. Although she never quite knew what it was, there was something different about him from the other young gentlemen at court, and she liked that. She would have liked it better, she told herself as she removed her own shoes, if she knew how to identify her feelings for him. They were certainly nothing like what Guinevere felt for Lancelot, or Isolde for Tristan. That much she knew.

Only when she sat down on the edge of her small bed did she see them. A little bouquet of primroses lay on her pillow, bound by a strip of green silk ribbon. There was no note, no hint of who had left them. As she picked them up, Bess felt herself smile. Her mind raced back to the hunt that day, and to anyone who had paid even the slightest attention to her and might have left them, besides the king. However, he seemed a highly unlikely source, she thought, laughing sheepishly at herself for even considering such a preposterous thing.

It was late, and she had been asked to accompany Lady Hastings and her sister, Lady Fitzwalter, at prayer for the queen. While Bess had seen very little of the powerful Duke of Buckingham at court, she had learned well that his two sisters were not women she would want to defy. Quickly, she changed her shoes and donned a prettier cap, making certain her hair was properly tucked beneath the lacy fall. She pinched her cheeks, glanced in the little mirror on the table beside her bed, then dashed out of the room. She left the flowers lying beneath her riding hood and gloves, as forgotten as the question of who had left them there, or exactly what it was that drew her to entirely trust Gil Tailbois.

—GUINEVERE,
LANCELOT

 

“I
must be rid of Mistress Bryan,” Henry announced to Wolsey matter-of-factly as they stood together on the archery field, a warm summer wind ruffling the plume of his cap and the edges of Wolsey’s black cassock. The field was far behind the palace, just beyond the apple orchard, where Henry knew no one would hear them. They were alone but for pages and stewards who waited at a distance with wine and perfumed, dry cloths, to attend him when they were finished.

“She pleases Your Highness no longer?” the stout prelate dared to ask.

“She pleases me a little too much. But I am bored with the girl, Wolsey,” he grumbled. “She is always lurking about, always laughing too loudly at my jokes, always smiling and flirting and waiting for me to call for her.”

“Forgive me, sire, but that is bad precisely how?”

“It is desperation, Wolsey, a most unappealing quality in a woman, even one so young and pretty as Elizabeth Bryan.” He set down his bow. “Things with her have run their course. Katherine will deliver me a son soon enough, and I have a need to be ready to get her with another as soon as possible afterward. But I cannot risk insulting the girl’s father. I am not a fool to this sort of thing. Sir Thomas is one of my dearest friends, and I know he has turned a blind eye to this dalliance for months out of deference to me.”

Henry ran a hand behind his neck, feeling the heat from the late-summer sun as heavily upon him as his conscience.

“That may be a problem,” Wolsey observed. “He could make an issue of it, unless Your Highness provides an appealing alternative for his daughter.”

“A marriage?” Henry asked as he signaled for the waiting steward to bring them each a goblet of wine.

“Why not? The girl is fifteen already.”

“Have you anyone to propose to me, Wolsey? You know I trust your judgment in all things.”

The bishop with the full cheeks and small eyes took a long swallow of wine before he replied. “Brandon, whom you trust equally, might advise you differently, but Master Carew is the right age, nearly eighteen, and unmarried. I used to see the little glances between them. I am certain, due to his standing with you, Sir Thomas and his wife would approve.”

“Nicholas Carew is quite a rake now. There are few girls at my court with whom he has not dallied.”

“Which makes him eminently suitable to accept the less-than-virginal Mistress Bryan, does it not?” He arched a brow and waited for Henry to consider it fully as he placed his empty goblet back onto a silver tray the steward held beside them.

Marriages really were the most prudent way to solve a multitude of complications, Henry thought as he picked up his bow once again and drew an arrow from the tooled leather quiver across his back. The old French king Louis XII had happily agreed to marry his sister Mary, a month earlier, easing England away from the need to return to war with France that summer, as he had thought to do. By the alliance, he was also saving face after Ferdinand and Maximilian, behind Henry’s back, had brokered their own deals with Louis XII. That betrayal still stung.

If he thought about it too long, Henry felt guilty about giving someone so young and beautiful as Mary to an ailing widower like Louis XII. But his advisers had told him Louis was too ill to survive a vibrant young queen for long, so she would have the opportunity to find love in the next marriage he arranged for her. Infuriating as the circumstances were, one must not be stymied by such details but always be open to all options, he had resolved.

Tonight was the banquet celebrating Mary’s marriage by proxy. His noble prisoner, the duc de Longueville, a guest really, was to stand in for the French king, who was not well enough to travel to claim his own bride. All of the players were as intricately woven together as a fine Flemish tapestry, he thought as he drew back the arrow and steadied his arm. He knew all about de Longueville’s secret encounters with Jane Poppincourt, and he had kept quiet about them for the same reason he found himself considering Carew for Elizabeth Bryan. Women were always less of a problem when they were not cast aside outright. In time, when he found someone new upon whom to grant his favor, and Elizabeth was well married, perhaps they would even be friends. The fact that there was no one right now who interested him was of little consequence to Henry. There would be someone soon enough—certainly the next time the queen was with child, he thought as the arrow jettisoned directly toward the bull’s-eye, shaking the target.

Even though she was pregnant, the queen had decided to attend the banquet that evening to celebrate Mary’s proxy marriage, so all of her ladies and young maids of honor were called upon to attend her. Bess had seen little of the queen in the past month as Katherine still preferred the company of her older companions just now, so Bess knew how important it must be for her to leave her intimate surroundings.

Along with Jane, Elizabeth, and Gertrude, her cousin, Bess was to attend the important ceremony but stand well behind the queen; Maria de Salinas; Agnes de Venagas, who was Mountjoy’s wife; and Bess’s mother, Catherine. Two of the youngest maids of honor, both new to court, were invited as well. Mary and Anne Boleyn, the daughters of Sir Thomas Boleyn, passed in front of Bess, whispering and giggling inappropriately. Instinctively, Bess did not like or trust either of them. Both girls were as impudent as they were pretty, and she intended to stay well out of their way.

It was rare for a queen visibly with child to attend such a public function, but Bess saw how Katherine wore her devotion to the king on her sleeve, and in every expression on her face. Bess had been too young to recall much about her own mother’s pregnancies, but now the process fascinated her as the culmination of great love, like the one between the king and queen, or even between her own parents. She could not quite fathom loving anyone enough to happily bring that upon her own body, yet Bess secretly hoped she would wish it one day, and out of love rather than duty.

After the solemn and formal ceremony, and a Nuptial Mass, there was a celebration in the great banquet hall. Beneath plastered beams, the walls were hung with cloth of gold embroidered with the arms of France and England. The warm summer breeze through open windows made the candles and lanterns shimmer as everyone danced. Bess sat beside Gil and Elizabeth. She felt suitably elegant in a formal gown of mauve-colored velvet with turned-back sleeves and a small pearl-dotted coif.

Beside the king sat a gouty man with a clipped little gray beard whom Bess did not know. She had seen him infrequently at court, but then only at a distance. When Gil saw her staring at him, he casually said, “That is the Duke of Buckingham, just returned from his estates. Wolsey and he do not like each other. It is always like a great chess match when Buckingham returns between the duke, Brandon, and Wolsey to see who will have the most influence with the king.”

“Tonight it would appear to be the duke,” Bess observed.

“I certainly will hear all about it later before I retire.” Gil rolled his eyes and smiled.

“The bishop confides in you to that extent?” Bess asked, letting the note of surprise in her voice come through.

“Only from time to time, if there is no one else about.”

“Oh,
do
tell her the truth,” Elizabeth interjected from beside them. “Bishop Wolsey dotes on you as if you were his own son.”

“’Tis true enough that he is fond of me,” Gil quickly responded. “Quite likely, it is only because he is unable to have a family of his own.”

“You do look a bit like him,” Bess observed, noticing the resemblance for the first time. Elizabeth returned her gaze once again across the vast room to the king, who was laughing at something the Duke of Buckingham had said. Bess watched with surprise as Elizabeth lowered her eyes and smiled flirtatiously, clearly trying to get the king’s attention.