Court of Traitors (Bridget Manning #2) Read online

  “I adhere to the faith of your noble father, madam, the Catholic faith. That is the faith I was brought up with and have followed all my life” Bridget replied. Although her words still represented her true opinion, just, Bridget hated having to utter them. They sounded slippery somehow, rehearsed, like she was just another courtier who made certain to conform his or herself to reflect the views of whomsoever they happened to be speaking to. The Lady Mary was staunchly committed to following the old ways, having been steeped from girlhood in the intense Roman Catholicism of her mother, Katherine of Aragon. She was famous for it. It would not do to tell her that, while Bridget still heard Mass and prayed to the saints, she did not believe with the same unquestioning fervency that she had as a girl. She acknowledged that the reformers, the heretics as the Lady Mary would call them, had a point: the church was, in some cases, corrupt. It was venal. It was decadent. It needed to change. In addition to that, she also did not feel any great sadness that, as a country, England no longer owed any allegiance to the pope, a foreign potentate and a byword for dissoluteness. Although she did concede, privately of course, that the king was a debatable replacement.

  “Excuse me, Your Grace, I hate to disturb, but Her Majesty wishes to speak with you,” said Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford. She had sidled up quietly to them, without being noticed by any except Bridget, who had watched her progress across the chamber with a sinking heart. As a consequence, the Lady Mary jumped when she delivered her message and seemed momentarily flustered by it.

  “By the Virgin, Lady Rochford, you startled me! I did not see you standing there. You possess a most silent tread. But ’tis no matter, your interruption is aptly timed and has caused no undue disturbance to us. Lady de Brett and I have finished our conversation. For the time being, at least.” With that, she bid her a farewell and moved off in the direction of the queen, the Marchioness of Exeter following along behind.

  Once they was safely departed, Lady Rochford turned to Bridget and her demeanour instantly changed. Her blue eyes, which she kept so placid and mild for the Lady Mary’s benefit, became stormy and suffused with anger. “Well madam, I congratulate you. It is not often I am wrong but it would appear I am proven so in your case. I thought never to see you again. In fact, the last time I did see you you were just returned from the Tower, covered in Anne’s blood, scrambling about for your few meagre possessions in her apartments, without so much as a penny to your name or a home to go to. I was convinced then that that would be the end of you. But alas I was wrong. Times change, Anne is gone, Jane is queen, and now here you are, come to court to secure a place in Her Majesty’s household. If that is indeed your plan my lady, you are going to be very sadly disappointed. There is no place for you with Her Majesty and never will be, and do not think for one moment that you can call upon the assistance of your friend Lord Cromwell in this matter because he cannot—”

  “He cannot what? Assist me to gain favour with the queen? I see no reason why he can’t, since that is precisely what he did for you,” Bridget interrupted sweetly. “I mean to say, that is how you secured your position with the queen, is it not? By enlisting the help of Lord Cromwell?” Bridget had not known for a certainty that Lady Rochford had actually gone to Cromwell for aid—she was merely making an educated guess that she had—but she could see by Lady Rochford’s expression that she had struck gold.

  “I may have written to the master secretary to plead my cause, and why ever would I not? He has helped many people who find themselves in a . . . precarious situation. I am a poor widow, and he is a friend to poor widows. Besides, had I not been a friend to him—”

  “Oh, yes, I quite agree, madam,” Bridget said. “You have been an excellent friend to Lord Cromwell, in the cause of getting rid of your husband and sister in law. A great friend and I believe that what you say is true: he is an accommodating gentleman to his friends. At least, whilst it remains in his best interests to be so.”

  Lady Rochford bit her lip and the colour leeched from her face. She whispered, “I never thought he would go through with it! God above, nobody did! Yes, I realised they would be disgraced, Anne most of all, and then I thought she would be sent away somewhere just like Queen Katherine was, not . . .” Lady Rochford’s voice trailed off, and her eyes welled up with tears. Her distress seemed real, and Bridget could feel herself weakening towards her, a woman she disliked but who God knew was much to be pitied in so many ways, but even so she steeled herself against the emotion. Pitiable or not, she could not allow Lady Rochford to get away with the lie she had just uttered.

  Bridget moved closer to her and said, “Spare me the act madam. You may have convinced yourself that you did not know what Anne’s fate would be, what your husband’s fate would be but we both know that is not true. You told tales, you spread rumours, you acted the informer to Cromwell in the full knowledge that he would use your words against Queen Anne and probably against Lord Rochford, too. You would have to have been delusional not to have known that it was all going to end on the scaffold for them, for all of them. And so it did. Maybe you now regret it, maybe their fate keeps you awake at night, as it does me, but do not think to convince me madam, with tears in your eyes, that you did not know that the king would kill them. You knew full well.”

  The two women regarded each other, and a look of desolation passed across Lady Rochford’s ashen visage. After a moment, she shook it off and raised herself up to her full height. “I seek to convince you of nothing. Believe what you will, Lady de Brett. I do not care either way. Why should I? You are a person of no account. I, on the other hand, am a member of the queen’s household and high in her favour. I have managed to secure that position for myself, using whatever means were available to me, as a woman always must. You, meanwhile, have secured your new-found standing in the world by landing a husband. I suppose I should congratulate you for that, although,” she glanced across at Sir Richard, who was still engaged in lively conversation with the king and Cromwell, “he is rather old, isn’t he? He must have seen over fifty summers, judging by the lines on his forehead at least. Nothing compared to Master Will Redcliff! Now there is a handsome, young man. Weren’t you fond of him once? He would have made a fine, vigorous husband. But never mind. Beggars, as I am sure you have discovered, cannot be choosers.”

  Happy to have at last discomposed Bridget, Lady Rochford smiled winningly at her, then went and re-joined the circle surrounding the queen. Bridget barely had time to collect herself and digest the encounter before she felt her husband’s touch upon her arm.

  He was flushed with excitement and could hardly contain himself. “Wife, our cause progresses with great speed! The king could not have shown me more favour. Why, he spoke to me for upwards of five minutes and has expressed a desire for us to accompany him when the court removes to Windsor. I have also had much talk with Lord Cromwell—what a charming fellow he is, so different from how he has been described to me! He assures me he will do all he can to smooth my path with His Majesty. There may be a position in all this for me and for you, too. Cromwell said he would recommend you to the queen; she is in need of more ladies apparently. Is this not wonderful news, my dear?”

  Bridget swallowed against the dryness in her throat and summoned up a smile for her husband’s benefit. He did not notice, as he never did, that it failed to reach her eyes. Across the chamber from them, Thomas Cromwell was involved in a discussion with Will. He allowed his gaze to drift from him and lock onto Bridget’s. He inclined his head to her, as though they were allies acknowledging one another, and Bridget clenched her jaw before she pragmatically decided to return the gesture. Against her breastbone she could feel the sharpness of the garnet ring that lay hidden beneath her bodice, the coldness of the stone pressing into her flesh like ice.

  Chapter Three

  That night, they dined in the Great Hall. Sir Richard was still full of excitement over his encounter with the king, and thus was more than willing to speak to anyone and everyone about it. Bridget
listened with half an ear to him chatter on and on but she could not hide for long that she was in a pensive mood. She hardly touched any of the feast that was laid before her. Her appetite was non-existent. The figures of the king, Cromwell, the Lady Mary, Lady Rochford and Will rotated without cease in her mind. She could not stop herself from thinking about them, they spun around in her mind like a weathercock in a February breeze. Especially Will.

  He was not in the hall; he was probably eating with the king in his privy chamber, where His Majesty preferred to dine these days. Even though he was absent, she could still feel his eyes upon her, so full of hurt and recrimination, as though she had committed some dreadful, never-to-be-forgiven crime against him. As though she was the one who had lied and dissembled and tortured poor, doomed Mark Smeaton with her own hands. A remembrance of the young musician ascending onto the scaffold, stepping through the blood of four men as he did so, rose up before her. She shuddered and took a deep draught of spiced wine.

  As she put down her cup and glanced upwards she saw that Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, was staring at her. Her spirits sank even further, and she had to make a conscious effort to prevent the wine from coming back up her throat. She had no desire to speak with him and hoped that he had no intention of speaking with her. Fortunately, he did not. He merely raised his goblet and performed a mock little toast, as though he was congratulating her on her return to court. Instead of replying with a like gesture, she gazed down at the table and wished he would go away, the taste of wine in her gullet almost overpowering now. The Earl did move away but he was not the only person in the Great Hall who was showing interest in the de Bretts. They had become the object of other, much grander, aristocratic attention. Sir Nicholas Carew, Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter and Sir Edward Neville came marching up to them, and Sir Richard leapt immediately to his feet. He greeted them with stutters of delight and bowed as obsequiously as he could.

  Carew smiled superciliously at the sight, then grasped Sir Richard firmly by the hand. “De Brett, how marvellous it is to see you!” he began. “I had almost given you up for dead it has been so long! Do you remember that I attended your wedding to Eleanor, God rest her soul, in the chapel at Thorns all those years ago? Must be at least twenty years ago now. Our families had much to do with one another in those days. My father thought very highly of yours.” Sir Richard nodded happily in agreement, although his eyes had dimmed a little at the mention of his second wife. “And now you have wed for a third time to this beauteous, young lady here, and I must offer my felicitations to you both. My lady.”

  He bowed to her, as did Exeter and Neville, and Bridget accepted their compliments with grace. As she did so, she assessed the three gentlemen standing before her. Sir Edward was an older gentleman, in his sixties Bridget would guess, who had been at court a long time. Renowned as a supporter of Katherine of Aragon, he had enjoyed less favour with the king in more recent years. His cousin Exeter was younger and a fairly handsome man, with even features, a full beard and deep brown eyes. He was a grandson of King Edward IV, and therefore the blood of the Plantagenets coursed through him like a torrent. A very important landowner, he should have, by right, been a close confidant of the king but reputedly was not. Carew, on the other hand, at over forty, was much of an age with the king, with whom he had been friends from childhood. Famous as an exponent of the joust, he had long enjoyed the status of a favourite at court. He had been one of the foremost supporters of Jane Seymour, which had put him, naturally enough, amongst the ranks of those who had hated Anne Boleyn. Bridget wondered whether he recalled that they had had an encounter before, on the day that Anne had bundled up her daughter in her arms and traipsed the galleries and passageways of the palace in search of the king. If he did recollect it, he did not show it. His long visage was as bland and benign as any courtier’s, the perfect imitation of disinterestedness.

  Sir Richard, far from disinterested, gladly accepted Carew’s blessings and offered to fetch both him and Exeter and Neville cups of wine. They all charmingly assented. Once he had departed, the mask of neutrality that Carew had worn so expertly slipped away and his features turned hard. He addressed Bridget directly. “I remember you. You were one of that Boleyn woman’s maids, attended her in the Tower, on the scaffold even. I suppose, given that history, you deserve some credit for having the stomach to come back here. But I warn you that if you have done so because you seek to emulate your old mistress’s ways and obtain advancement by climbing into the king’s bed, then you should turn around and leave now else you will end the same way she did.”

  “Now, steady on, Carew,” Exeter chimed in. “I am sure Lady de Brett has no such intentions. Jane is our queen, and the king openly adores her. She carries his son and heir in her belly. No one will allow anything, or anyone, to upset that.” Neville murmured his agreement and they both looked encouragingly at her, but Carew did not join them.

  Bridget was amazed at the bluntness of their speech, most especially Carew’s, and at first could not formulate an adequate response. When she finally did, it was equally direct. “Let me be perfectly clear, gentlemen, so that I may put your obviously fevered minds at rest. The king summoned my husband and myself to court. As I am sure you realise, such a summons may not be denied. I obeyed as a true subject, and a true wife, and not out of any personal inclination to return to this place. As for your vile insinuations, Sir Nicholas, I am faithful to my husband: I do not climb into anyone’s bed. I am well aware of who the queen is, and I have no intention of upsetting anything. I am here solely to support Sir Richard. If I had my own choice, I would never come near the court again. But a wife is at the beck and call of her husband and not the other way around.”

  Sir Richard re-joined them and handed the stony-faced Carew and the self-conscious Exeter and Neville their cups of wine. Carew drank his down in one gulp, offered a curt thank you, and stalked off, followed more sedately by Neville. Exeter took his time and farewelled them with greater courtesy, as well as a few words of friendly advice. “It is good to see you, de Brett, but I feel I must counsel you to be careful at court. You will find it much changed and not for the better. His Majesty enjoys the company of varlets and lowborn men—he surrounds himself with them—and those of us who are descended from the old families are pushed aside. The worst of these rogues is Thomas Cromwell,” he hissed. “He rules all here, and the king does nothing without his advice. He is now Lord Privy Seal, as well as the Vicar General, and is nothing more than the son of a shearman, who was known as the most dishonest man in London! It would be amusing were it not the truth.”

  Sir Richard assured him he would exercise all due caution and Exeter seemed pleased with that. He shook his hand and walked away. Once he was gone, Sir Richard turned on her. “What happened with Carew?” he demanded. “Did you have words with him? His expression was thunderous when I returned. I hardly knew whether he would drink the wine or throw it at me! I certainly hope you did not quarrel with him, because we cannot afford to alienate anybody at court. Not if we are to rise.”

  “Maybe so, husband, however . . .” Bridget started, but she never completed her reply. A man in green-and-white livery entered the hall and made straight for them. He performed a very slight bow and addressed himself to Sir Richard.

  “Sir, His Majesty the King requires the attendance of yourself and your wife in his privy chamber. If you would care to accompany me, sir, madam, I shall lead you there directly.”

  Sir Richard’s face lit up, and he wasted no time in following the messenger out of the hall. Bridget trailed unwillingly behind them with Carew Exeter and Neville watching her intently as she walked out the door.

  Upon arrival in the privy chamber, they found only a small group of courtiers in attendance. The king was engaged in a game of cards, but he sprang to his feet as soon as they crossed the threshold and ushered them in himself, like a genial landlord welcoming guests into his humble abode. Of course, it was very far from humble, and Bridget cou
ld not help but gawp in wonder at the luxuriousness of the king’s apartments. The rooms were brightly lit by rows and rows of fat, white candles that blazed from countless sconces and candelabrum, illuminating the rich, jewel-like tapestries that hung weightily from the walls. The floor was inlaid with Tudor roses and the initials “H&J” loomed out at Bridget from every surface, their straight, confidently drawn lines reminding her, as if she needed it, of the new order of things.

  The king, at his leisure, was less sumptuously dressed than earlier in the day, though only slightly. He had discarded his scarlet-and-gold gown for a ruby-red doublet encrusted with hundreds of tiny pearls set off by a single, luminous pearl that sat in the middle of his velvet cap. “Come, come,” he cried, “do not be shy!” He motioned them forward, and they walked a little nervously toward him. Bridget executed a deep curtsey, from which the king ordered her briskly to rise. “No need for that, madam. I have had enough of bowing and curtseying for one day. All I ever see are the tops of people’s heads. I wish to look at your face. It is such a lovely one.”

  He devoured her quite unashamedly with his eyes, and Bridget felt herself blush under such a frank appraisal. He took in every aspect of her visage: her dark eyes, her high cheekbones, her full lips, her smooth forehead, and the few wisps of blonde hair that had escaped from under her hood. This time, unlike earlier in the day, the sight of her did not seem to perturb him. Quite the opposite. He appeared enlivened by it, so much so that he could hardly tear his gaze away. Bridget, aware of the silence in the room, cringed inwardly and battled to maintain a suitably respectful mien under such a long and intense evaluation from the king.