The Queen's Rival Read online

  “Of course. I have the article right here to prove it.”

  Elizabeth tipped her head. An incredulous smile broke across her small face. “You took away something?”

  “Only some scrap of cloth from beneath the bed, just to show for certain I was there.”

  “Gilly thought he saw spark enough in you that you might actually go through with it,” she said with a chuckle.

  Bess felt a surge of anger at the sound of Elizabeth’s laughter. “Oh, he did, did he?”

  “Gilly said he thinks that great beauty brings courage along with it, so he will be glad to know he was correct.”

  Bess sprang indignantly back to her feet. “Oh, will he?”

  “Oh no, do settle your tail feathers, Bess. It was all just a bit of fun.”

  “At my expense! What if I had been caught?”

  “You are far too clever for that. Even I could tell that from the first. You take after your mother, whom we all like a great deal.”

  Bess knew that flattering her mother was a ploy, but her homesickness allowed it to work predictably. “Do not do anything like that to me again,” she warned a little more tepidly.

  “It is a promise. Now then, what exactly did you fetch?”

  Bess held up the article then, looking at it herself for the first time. In the light she could see that it was a baby’s cradle blanket. The embroidered initial she had felt in the dark was not an H but an A sewn in gold thread with a crown embroidered above it. The A was clearly for Arthur, the king’s older brother, first husband of Queen Katherine. For a moment, both girls gazed at it in awe. The king’s bedchamber was not a place an infant’s cradle ever would have been placed or stored, so it had likely been secreted there intentionally—a link perhaps to a lost son or brother by this king or the last. Bess considered the romantic thought. It was a poignant reminder of the humanity and mortality behind the grandeur of the ruler Bess had yet to see or meet.

  “The women in the queen’s suite always speak of how close the brothers once were. Perhaps it remains there as a comfort and reminder,” Elizabeth offered, losing her smile and sounding, for a moment, almost like an adult.

  To have married his own brother’s widow must have brought a certain amount of guilt, and even a sense of betrayal, Bess thought, knowing well of the sibling bond between herself and George. She could not imagine George gone forever from her life, or what small token she might wish to keep as a reminder.

  “That is so sad,” Bess said softly.

  “Some whisper that the king’s marriage is cursed because he married Arthur’s wife, which in Leviticus the Bible expressly forbids, and that is why she has not yet been able to give him a living child. It is said he might well believe this himself.”

  “My father always says the marriage bond is the most important thing. I cannot imagine going outside of that.”

  “Here, there is very little fidelity. You shall see that soon enough,” Elizabeth warned.

  “So, do I pass the test from you and Master Tailbois?” Bess asked, changing the subject.

  They both glanced down at the baby’s cradle blanket she had taken from a king. “Indeed you do. Actually, for that, we should well call you our new leader,” Elizabeth said with a clever smile.

  Gil knelt and removed Wolsey’s lambskin riding boots from his thick, blistered feet and placed them neatly beside the chair. Then he stepped dutifully back beside the fire to pour the cleric a cup of warm ale. Wolsey had grumbled to the boy already that his journey had taken him two arduous days, traveling from Calais back to Richmond. It was three hours on choppy waters, crossing from Calais to Dover, then another long ride over hard, rutted roads, stopping only for fresh horses that would see him to his duty. By the time he had arrived, it was dark and the queen had already retired, so Wolsey would have to settle for speaking with her in the morning after matins, and then begin the exhausting return journey. Such was the level of his ambition to please the king who had sent him.

  Gil prepared a basin of warm water for Wolsey’s feet, then brought it to him. “Your feet and ankles are blistered from the stirrups.”

  “And they shall be so again tomorrow as I return to Thérouanne.”

  “Can you stay no longer and rest, perhaps?”

  “I have my duty, boy, as you have yours,” Wolsey answered gruffly.

  He watched the youth flinch at his words, which were delivered in a clipped tone. Thomas Wolsey had not intended to sound harsh, but softness was weakness, he reasoned, and that could only get in the way of his ambition.

  In the beginning—a lifetime ago now—he had taken responsibility for the boy out of guilt. He had retained him as a ward out of affection. Wolsey touched Gil’s head as he felt the warm water’s relief. The boots really were too tight, but they were of hand-tooled Spanish leather, from the same maker the king himself often used. Wolsey was a vain man. Few knew that about him because he hid it well behind his greater show of piety. He hid many things well. The road to court from the life of a simple rural priest in Norwich had been a long one, and he had made many mistakes along the way. The greatest threat to his wild ambition was his continuing hunger for women. He glanced again at young Tailbois, still tenderly washing his feet. The lad did not seem to know that particular variety of temptation—or, perhaps, just not yet.

  Thomas Wolsey had not so much desired to join the clergy as he had accepted it as his sole path to a life of prominence and riches. And once decided, he had trod that path well. He had greedily taken every opportunity, attending Oxford, befriending the powerful Marquess of Dorset, and eventually becoming rector in Somerset, where the marquess was patron. But, as with everything, Wolsey had done it all by taking careful shortcuts and using other unconventional means, and satisfying himself along the way with more than one mistress.

  Then, ten years ago, he had found himself chaplain to the great Archbishop of Canterbury, and thus in the direct pathway to the new young monarch, Henry VIII. And nothing—nor anyone—was going to get in the way of that.

  “Is that better?” Gil asked, drying Wolsey’s feet and carefully pressing them into soft black velvet slippers.

  “’Tis far better, actually. My thanks.”

  Wolsey watched how the reply, casually spoken, worked like a balm to heal the sting of his earlier words. He could see it in the boy’s face. He idolized him.

  “I am glad. I can only imagine so arduous a journey.”

  “Yes, lad, it was that. And I shall be forced to depart as soon as I have spoken with the queen.”

  “When will you return for good, now that you have so masterfully arranged for the king’s victory in France?”

  Thomas smiled in spite of himself, and his meaty cheeks puffed into two round balls above full red lips and below coal black eyes.

  “You did do that, after all. I know it is your victory,” Gil proclaimed.

  “’Tis true enough, I suppose,” Wolsey said, voicing his agreement with a boastful flourish as he again drew up the cup of ale. “And it was no simple task with Brandon always in the way.”

  Charles Brandon, the king’s affable childhood friend, was Wolsey’s nemesis in all things—and the single greatest impediment to his complete dominance over the sovereign. While Wolsey was stocky and ruddy faced, Brandon was slim, muscular, athletic, and handsome. While the king’s Almoner was serious and intense, the king’s friend was blithe and witty. These past months in France had been a daily struggle for Wolsey to keep himself in the forefront before Brandon. The selfless offer to ride home to check on the queen was the culmination of that struggle. The taking of a few coins from the king’s private stock had not been out of need for money so much as to prove that he could get away with it whereas Brandon could not. He, alone, had such unfettered access to the king. It was not behavior befitting a royal Almoner perhaps, but behavior certainly expected of the scrappy son of a commoner, one not to be underestimated by anyone.

  “The king has it in his mind to meet with the emperor
’s sister. But after that rather meaningless show, we shall all ride back to England, triumphant, drenched in our victory, prepared, at long last, for the birth of the royal heir,” he said with a sneer.

  He liked Katherine well enough. She made a tolerable queen, if not a stunning one. But he, like the rest of England, had already begun to grow weary of the wait for a living heir to secure the monarchy and the country. Certainly, there was no one else to be blamed for that but the queen. Marguerite of Navarre was said to be beautiful and witty, which Wolsey knew was the real reason Henry was keeping his army in Thérouanne longer than necessary. But the boy did not need to know that when he was still innocent about many of life’s more harsh realities. That veil would be lifted the moment Gil found someone he truly wanted but could not have.

  Wolsey knew all too well the pain of that.

  A light knock sounded at the door then, and Thomas set down his cup. “You may leave me, lad. I am certain you are tired.”

  “I should see you to bed first.”

  Wolsey stood as the door clicked, then slowly opened. A slim middle-aged woman with a narrow face, prominent nose, and straight, unbound russet-colored hair walked into the room. She was wearing a cambric nightdress, a blue velvet dressing gown, and a matching cap.

  “Forgive me, my lord. I believed you would be alone by now,” she said, seeing the boy still kneeling at Wolsey’s feet.

  “So did I. That shall be all for this evening, Master Tailbois. You may retire now,” he declared, drawing one of the king’s coins from a pocket in his coat and handing it to him.

  Certainly the gesture was more than generous, but silence was golden, and keeping the lad’s tongue, as well as his loyalty, was worth the price. He watched Gil regard the woman, then look back at him. For the first time in a long while, the boy’s expression did not reveal what he was thinking.

  “Shall I return in the morning to attend you, sir?” Gil finally asked as he moved slowly to the door, openly clutching the valuable coin.

  Wolsey made certain not to look at the woman as he responded. “That shall not be necessary this time, lad. But thank you just the same,” he replied in a calm, well-schooled tone, betraying nothing of himself beyond the words.

  The next morning just before dawn, Bess was awakened by a young servant girl who quietly helped her into a modest dress of beaded yellow satin with white lace frills at the wrist and wide, hanging sleeves. Once again, she was to attend the queen for matins. Everything at court was much more somber than she had imagined. Bess dressed her own hair by lamplight at the small polished looking glass framed in etched silver on a table next to her bed. Carefully, she pinned on a plain cap with a white linen fall that met her shoulders, and topped that with a gabled hood. She studied her reflection for a moment. Her skin was smooth and pale, her eyes were wide and vivid blue, and her nose was small and turned up sweetly at the end. She had always known she held the promise of beauty. But who might think her beautiful when there were so many sophisticated women at court, she could not imagine.

  Gathered in the presence chamber among ladies-in-waiting and other maids of honor as the sun slowly rose, pale pink, through the leaded windows, were Elizabeth Bryan, Jane Poppincourt, and Mary, the girl she knew to be the king’s younger and favorite sister. Bess lingered near the door at first, uncertain of her place among the elegant players. Elizabeth moved among the women with such grace and ease that it only increased Bess’s discomfort. Bess linked her hands at her waist, uncertain what else to do with them to stop their trembling. If there could be one friendly face, like that of her brother George, she could stop longing so desperately for the predictability of home and enjoy her limited time here. As yet, she did not trust Elizabeth Bryan.

  “I never thought you would do it. I am sorry we asked that of you.”

  The voice, young, male, unsteady, and whispered, came from behind her. Bess pivoted slowly. It was Gil Tailbois. He had entered the vast rooms with Thomas Wolsey, who had continued into the presence chamber just as Queen Katherine came out of her bedchamber through an arched doorway and drew near him. Bess watched the king’s stout Almoner bow reverently to the queen and then embrace her affectionately. Their inaudible whispers forced Bess to turn her attention back to the slim youth with the dark curls, and even darker eyes, who stood before her. The reference to the previous night set her even more on edge.

  “Do you and Mistress Bryan test all of the new girls at court this way, or was I the only fortunate one?”

  Clearly surprised at her sharp tone, Bess watched him shrug his shoulders, then run a bony hand behind his neck. “ ’Twas only a game, mistress.”

  “One that well could have seen me ejected from court altogether. I find little humor in that sort of game.”

  “More’s the pity when you are so splendid at it,” said Elizabeth Bryan, who had come up beside them in a sweep of amber-colored brocade, a gold and pearl pendant glistening at her throat.

  People here seemed always to be doing that, listening and lurking about, Bess thought angrily, remembering not only Wolsey but her own uncle. It was off-putting, to say the least.

  “We were wrong and you know it,” Gil suddenly said to Elizabeth. “Our boredom is not a sound reason to risk another’s position.”

  “Mistress Blount is going to discover that no place at court is ever without risk. She may as well find that out sooner than later. I believe we did her a service,” Elizabeth parried.

  While Wolsey continued speaking with the queen, Bess watched the Princess Mary whispering and laughing with Jane Poppincourt. Their light chatter was in direct contrast to the constant restraint, fear, and oppression Bess felt. She had clearly prepared her tourdion and her pavane for nothing; all anyone seemed to do here was sew or pray. For her, there was no reason to laugh or smile.

  As the queen linked her arm with Wolsey’s and headed toward the door for prayer, the rest of the court ladies and younger girls silently assembled behind them. As it was with everything else, the procession was a grave and orchestrated undertaking.

  When Lady Hastings nodded to her, Bess slipped into the line where she was directed beside the king’s sister. At eighteen, Mary was poised and breathtakingly pretty, and she seemed to Bess more elegant than anyone else in the queen’s household. It was difficult for Bess not to turn her sideways appraisals into stares as the collection of women walked silently out into the corridor, across a rich inlaid tile floor, and advanced down a twisted staircase to the king’s chapel. As they neared the open doors, the ladies before her all steepled their hands solemnly, and Bess followed suit. The queen and Wolsey were still speaking in low tones at the head of the line. Childish curiosity made her long to know what they were saying. Lines from Lancelot and sweepingly romantic images moved through her mind, and she nearly fell out of step before she steadied herself by looking at the back of Gilbert Tailbois directly ahead of her.

  He walked beside Elizabeth Bryan, her pretty amber brocade dress sweeping over the tiles. He was not unattractive, Bess decided, as they moved in a silent double-file line into a small, cold chapel, a sanctuary with a very high vaulted ceiling and far fewer chairs than ladies. It became obvious that those behind her and the princess would be required to stand. Bess had no idea how someone so young and new at court as she would have been given such prominence of place, but she was old enough to realize that those behind her would not like it. The thought only set her further on edge.

  Instead, she tried to focus again on the young man in front of her—the only male, besides Wolsey, in their company. Gil seemed taller than most young men his age, certainly taller than George, her brother. He was not quite gangly, yet youthfully slim. His rich wheat-colored doublet bore slashings at the puffed sleeves, and a dagger and tassel were slung from a belt at his waist, in the current fashion, all of which seemed to wear him, rather than the other way around. Yet he walked with a certain confidence bespeaking his feelings that he belonged precisely where he was, however mysteriously. B
ess liked that about him, even though she was still angry about the challenge.

  She was too aware of the people around her after that to hear much of the service, making sure to know for certain who each lady was, her title, and level of importance at court. She silently catalogued each of them as the cleric at the altar droned out the prayers. It would be dangerously easy, her mother had warned, to insult someone if she did not.

  After the early-morning service, they returned to a large, elegant chamber beside the queen’s apartments for breakfast. It did not come as any surprise to Bess that the meal was simple. There was baked fish, porridge, and bread served at a large tapestry-draped oak trestle table in a room overlooking the bowling green. The queen did not join them; neither did Wolsey nor Master Tailbois. She was disappointed at that since, besides Elizabeth Bryan, Gil seemed the only spirited soul at this rather dull court, and the comparisons she was continually making between them had begun to remind her of George.

  Bess sat between Elizabeth and Jane, eating silently as she tried not to stare at Princess Mary, who sat on the opposite side of the table. Such elegance fascinated her. Her dress was rich pumpkin-colored velvet, the square-cut necklace outlined with a border of gold, set with jewels. At her breast was a heavy gold square pendant adorned with four pearls. Her pale copper-colored hair was caught up above her neck in a gold mesh caul. Even for matins, Mary looked noticeably lovelier than the other girls, and still there was a spark of fun about her. It made Bess wonder if her brother, King Henry, possessed the same spark. He certainly had that reputation.

  After the silent meal, the ladies returned to the predictable task of sewing more banners and flags. As it had been the day before, it was largely silent work, and Bess was certain she would soon go mad from the tedium, when a commotion exploded in a flurry of Spanish in the privy chamber just beyond the doors. Murmurs, whispers, and serious cutaway glances occurred all around her, but no one dared move from their places.