Читать книгу The Queen's Lady - Barbara Kyle - Страница 12

“They’re going to cut off his hand?” Honor asked, horrified.

She turned to Margery Napier. The two girls were the same age, and for six months had shared duties among the Queen’s two dozen ladies-in-waiting. They had stopped halfway across a colonnaded outdoor gallery at Greenwich Palace with bundles of the Queen’s furs in their arms. “But why?” Honor asked. “What’s he done?”

The gallery looked down on a cramped quadrangle where a crowd was forming. The quadrangle was hemmed in by the red brick walls of the scullery and spicery, and the gray stone walls of the granary, chandlery, and brewhouse. This jumble of buildings huddled under the perimeter skyline of palace roofs serrated with gables and chimneys where the occasional flash of a gilded turret reflected the watery winter sun.

“It’s the new penalty for brawling on the King’s tennis courts,” Margery answered blithely. Her eye was following a young lordling with a shapely leg as he and his wolfhound sauntered out of an alley. Man and dog left behind them a pattern of black hollows in the powdery snow as they joined the twenty or so people milling in front of a low scaffolding at the wall opposite the gallery.

Honor rested her bundle on the gallery railing. “But men quarrel round the palace all the time, then pay their fines and walk away. None has lost a hand for it.”

“This one will,” Margery said with quiet relish. “The King is in a fume. He says he is ill served by the pack of jackals at his court, and he’s told the lord steward and the palace marshal that he’ll have order.”

It was the first Honor had heard of it. She studied the bright, bird eyes of her friend with a quizzical smile. “You don’t miss a single flurry of the nonsense that goes on around here, do you?”

Margery tossed her head complacently. “I know that the gentleman who’s to forfeit his hand wagered five pounds on a tennis match with Reginald Quince and that Quince lost the match, but would not pay. And I know that Quince got his ugly nose broken for his impudence. Which he heartily deserved, in my book. I’m sure he owes my brother five pounds and more for a night of cards last week.”

“And who’s the unfortunate young brawler?” Honor asked, scanning the crowd, though there was no sign yet of a prisoner.

Margery pouted her ignorance on this point. “One can’t keep up with every wild fellow that roars into court,” she said. “Although,” she winked, “I have heard that he married into money, and while he sports and sparks here to his heart’s content, his wife obligingly waits at home at Norfolk.”

The hubbub below grew more raucous as courtier friends hailed one another and ladies swirled out of the palace in tittering knots. On men and women alike, brocades and silks and velvets in riotous shades of marigold, ladyblush, and popinjay blue set up a hum of color, as if a flock of exotic birds had fluttered down in place of the drab pigeons that regularly pecked here at the granary refuse. The scullery doors stood partway open, and the barefoot boys who scoured the cauldrons peeked out through clouds of steam and dared one another, giggling, to dart out into the throng.

Honor shook her head with a wondering smile. Even after six months with the Queen she was still astounded and appalled by the chaos of the King’s court. As both a private household and a public organization it was a seething snarl of humanity surrounding the royal person. Bishops and peers; priests and prostitutes; astrologers, minstrels and falconers; vendors, wonder workers and sages—all were drawn to forage for the acorns of patronage under the royal oak. The place teemed with intrigue and violence, for every gentleman, nobleman, and churchman was attended by a throng of hangers-on, and this army of servants in various employs lounged and diced and quarreled through the crowded corridors, staircases, and courtyards. Up to a thousand people were fed each day at the King’s table, where grooms armed with whips and bells patrolled the great hall to fend off scrounging dogs and rascals who tried to pass as servants. All men went armed, and daggers were drawn over every slight, real or imagined.

This tennis quarrel was no surprise to Honor; gambling was almost a religion here. Courtiers bet on everything from wrestling matches, to a lady’s virtue, to the amount of wine a banqueting ambassador would consume, and both gentlemen and ladies were expected to play coolly, and for high stakes. The King himself often lost many pounds a day at dice. Tennis, the game most threatening to a man’s purse, was not for the faint at heart.

There was the rumble of a single drum. Honor and Margery craned over the railing at a small procession snaking out under their gallery. Seven men emerged and started to walk across to the scaffold. Honor recognized their white-bearded leader as the royal surgeon. He supervised the maiming of state prisoners. She winced, thinking of the poor, quaking victim who had yet to appear. The grim band of officials filed up the five central platform steps. Margery displayed her skill by identifying them all: “The royal surgeon. Then, the sergeant surgeon—he’ll be doing the deed. Next, the yeoman of the wood yard, with his man bringing up the block. Then the King’s master cook with his cleaver. Then the farrier with his searing iron…”

She and Honor exchanged queasy glances at the thought of this instrument being used to cauterize a man’s bloody wrist stump.

“I won’t watch this,” Honor declared. “No silly fool should have to suffer so.” She hoisted her bundle off the railing. “And all for a tennis ball. It’s barbaric.” She started to go.

“Wait! They’re bringing him in!”

Margery had caught Honor’s elbow and was pulling her back, and Honor, submitting to a jolt of curiosity, leaned over the railing as the prisoner came out directly beneath them.

They looked down on the man’s head, whose close-cropped, lazy auburn curls absorbed the pale sun and shot back gleams of amber. The head turned from side to side with a languid ease, as if the man were passing through a crowd of well-wishers, and, indeed, the people parted for him with a hush of fascination. His stride was long and loose and self-assured, despite a distinct pigeon-toed inclination of his right foot—or perhaps because of it, as if vanity were not at stake. It was the legacy of a broken bone mended awry, Honor supposed. But though it gave his walk an unmistakable peculiarity he seemed oblivious to the defect, as if it were a trifle that had no bearing on a man’s power, just as a seasoned soldier ignores a battle scar.

He reached the base of the scaffold and stood for a moment with his back to the crowd. He wore a long-sleeved tunic of fine wool, of a green so dark it was nearer black, trimmed at the collar with marten but otherwise plain. Its skirt skimmed his knees where it met the tops of lived-in riding boots. A scratched leather belt as wide as a girl’s wrist drew in the tunic just above his lean hips. A second belt sloped diagonally to an empty scabbard—he had been disarmed for his ordeal—and his left hand rested on the scabbard with a controlled tension as if to give warning that, though impotent of sword, this hand could yet do battle.

He started up the steps where the officials faced him in a line. When he reached the top, his broad shoulders eclipsed the shallow-chested old surgeon. He came to a halt, a head taller than every other man on the platform.

He turned slowly, deliberately, like a noble about to receive tribute. He scanned the faces before him, beginning with those at his feet, so that the bone ridge of his eyebrows obscured his eyes from the gallery. Between the red-brown hair and dark clothing, his clean-shaven face was bronzed as if by years of sun and wind, and the effect, in contrast to the gaiety of colour all around, was of a gilded antique carving in weathered wood. But when he tilted up his face, cobalt blue eyes snapped the carving into instant, vivid life.

He looked up to the gallery where Honor and Margery stood alone. His gaze traveled slowly over both of them, pausing for a moment on Honor. She felt warm blood stain her face and prick the roots of her hair. Then he looked away.

Margery, smitten, let out a puff of breath. “If I had a man like that about I’d want both his hands left on him,” she purred. “Two hands, ready and able.”

Honor studied the man warily. There was a mockery in those defiant blue eyes that shook loose from her heart all the pity she had wrought, in her fancy, for a contrite young hothead. This man was not contrite. And, apparently about thirty, he was not so young either.

The drum rumbled again. The officials shuffled to the sides of the scaffold. The sergeant put a hand on the prisoner’s shoulder. “Richard Thornleigh,” he intoned, “do you stand prepared?”

Thornleigh hesitated for a moment. He blinked at the sergeant like someone who had not fully heard, or had not understood, the question. Then, in reply, he slowly raised his arm above his head and brought it down in a flourish of a bow that was absurdly wide, absurdly dashing. The exaggerated gesture unbalanced him, and he stumbled forward. The sergeant had to snatch him by his collar to keep him from careening into the onlookers.

“He’s drunk,” Honor said, dismayed.

“So he is,” Margery giggled.

The crowd shared Margery’s outlook and laughter erupted.

Thornleigh righted himself and brushed the sergeant’s hands away. He raised his arms to ask for quiet, and looked out over the faces until the laughter subsided.

“Gentlemen, ladies, forgive me.” He spoke with grave deliberation, but in a tone that was a clear mockery of a famous, and pompous, preacher of the city. His hand flattened over his heart. “In contemplation of this moment, I have today drunk deep of sorrow. I only pray God that before the day is out He will not let my sorrow drown me. But,” he added, listing dangerously to the left, and shuffling to a much wider stance to correct the imbalance, “I have also drunk deep of a bottle of sack.” He smiled crookedly. “And a very good bottle it was, too. Perhaps God sent it me for a raft.”

Another wave of laughter rocked the courtyard.

“Oh, Honor,” Margery chuckled, poking her rib, “don’t look so shocked. You can’t begrudge the fellow a tumbler or two to ease his pain.”

“I don’t begrudge him anything,” Honor answered sharply. “I know nothing of the man—except that he blasphemes at a singularly inopportune moment.”

“And that he’s a handsome dog,” Margery murmured, “and brave enough to spit at the Devil.”

Thornleigh was looking out across the people’s heads with sudden soberness. “I have only one request,” he said quietly. The people hushed.

“The penalty does not stipulate which limb is to be forfeit. I ask that my right be spared,”—he raised his right hand high—“that it may go on to do good service to my King.” His hand swept down across his body and grappled the top of the empty scabbard as if to wield his absent sword.

A roar of approval went up from the crowd. Several women sighed. The royal surgeon nodded quick agreement. “Agreed, sir. Are you now prepared?”

Thornleigh drew himself upright. Although the chatter continued around him, his face slowly hardened, and Honor noticed, beneath the defiance that rode the surface of those bold, blue eyes, a deep-drowning flicker of despair. She saw that he feared this moment after all. Well, she asked herself as pity crept back, what rational man would not?

“Now,” Thornleigh barked to the surgeon, “let’s have done with it!”

The surgeon nodded to the farrier. The farrier plucked the red-hot sealing iron from its coals. The royal chef waddled forward and handed his cleaver to the sergeant.

Thornleigh strode up to the block. He scowled at it as if to steel himself for the ordeal. Then, quickly, he straddled the spot, stretched out his left arm, loosed the leather lacing at his cuff, and peeled back the sleeve. He thumped his fist onto the center of the block. Despite the cold, beads of sweat glistened on his brow. With teeth clenched and lips pressed thin together he sucked in a sharp breath that flattened his nostrils and filled his chest. His lip curled, and for an instant Honor thought she read in his face something disturbing—some fierce, aberrant desire that actually welcomed this punishment.

The sergeant raised the cleaver. It glinted in the sun. Honor turned away.

“Stop!” a woman’s voice cried.

All heads in the courtyard turned to a door under the gallery. Honor and Margery looked down. A woman swathed in black sable strode out. Her yellow silk hem blazed below the fur, and rubies glittered on the yellow velvet hood that almost covered her dark hair. It was Anne Boleyn.

The sergeant lowered his cleaver. The crowd parted, whispering. Anne approached the scaffold. Thornleigh gaped at her in confusion. Anne handed up a paper to the Royal Surgeon. He scanned it quickly and raised his head to declare, “The King has issued a stay. The prisoner is released.”

The crowd gasped. Thornleigh, half in a trance, walked stiffly to the edge of the platform. In front of Anne he dropped to one knee. She offered her hand. He stared at it a moment as if overcome with amazement, then he caught it up. She waited long enough to receive his prolonged kiss of gratitude on her fingers, then silently turned again and walked briskly back toward the palace. Snow swirled in the wake of her furred train.

An uproar broke out. Men swarmed the platform to congratulate the reprieved man. Dogs barked and ran in circles. A lady fainted. Thornleigh staggered under the crush of well-wishers.

Honor caught Anne’s small smile of triumph just before she disappeared under the gallery. My God, Honor thought, she must have been watching and holding the King’s pardon in her hand all along. Yet she had waited, letting the scene reach its horrifying climax before making her entrance as Lady Merciful.

“Well, there’s proof of the hussy’s power,” Margery cried above the clamor. “As if we needed it. As if we weren’t already sick to death of seeing fellows swarm around her, hoping to coast up to the King on the hem of her yellow skirts. This Thornleigh, I suppose, is her newest toy. Hmph!” she sneered. “She helps herself to men the way my lord Wolsey helps himself to pastries.”

Honor was observing Thornleigh. Recovered, he was grinning now. His back absorbed the men’s hearty slaps, but his eyes were narrowed in carnal appreciation as he allowed a buxom, cooing lady to lace up his sleeve while his precious, spared hand hovered over her white bosom.

“And the result of both gluttonies is the same,” Honor muttered, watching him. “A swollen belly.”

Margery tittered. Honor bit her lip, instantly regretting her lewd remark. The man had courage, she had to acknowledge that, even if it was strong drink that had fortified him. But there was an uneasiness tossing in her: she chafed with shame for her royal mistress’s sake. Honor had learned a great deal in her few months in the Queen’s service; she had not been at court one week before she knew all about the royal scandal involving Anne. And here was brazen proof indeed, as Margery said, of the strings that tugged this shabby King!

Her teeth were chattering in the cold. “I’ve seen enough,” she said. She turned and left Margery ogling the carnival below.

When she entered the Queen’s suite, free of her bundles and looking forward to settling before the warmth of the brazier, she found a half dozen girls gathered there, her fellow ladies-in-waiting. They were whispering in agitation. Several looked quite frightened. One quickly told Honor of the crisis. The Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey himself, had just left in a great show of anger, she said. He had barged in and arrested the Queen’s young secretary, Walter. “For spying on the King!” the girl breathed in horror. Wolsey’s men, she said, had just taken Walter away. “Her Grace,” another girl added with a nervous nod at the Queen’s private chamber, “is quite beside herself.”

A third girl was at the sideboard pouring wine to take to the Queen. Her hands were trembling. Honor came to a swift decision. Quickly she went to the sideboard. “Let me, Beth,” she said. Beth relinquished the goblet, clearly relieved at the opportunity to steer clear of the storm.

Honor knocked gently on the Queen’s door and opened it. The Queen’s private chamber was empty. Honor stepped in and looked toward the far set of doors that stood open to the bedchamber.

There, Queen Catherine was on her knees in prayer before her prie-dieu. Its magnificent ivory carving glowed from the light of a rim of votive candles arching over the supplicant.

Honor went back and closed the door. Silently, she moved to a paper-strewn table near the bedchamber door and set the goblet down. But she did not leave.

Catherine’s head turned slightly, sharply, as though in annoyance at Honor’s continued presence, although her lips kept moving in her murmured prayer. Still, Honor did not go.

Catherine completed her orisons, crossed herself, and stood. Honor’s resolve surged at the sight of the Queen’s face. Strain had etched tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and the votive candles’ light glinted over the threads of gray in her light brown hair. Her squat figure appeared dowdy-looking despite her sumptuous purple brocade gown and costly amethysts. But there was a dignity and strength of will in her carriage, and in her calm eyes, that made Honor feel proud.

Catherine walked out of the bedchamber and glanced at the wine goblet. “Thank you,” she said wearily, her thoughts elsewhere. “You may go.” She closed her prayer missal and moved toward the fire that crackled in the hearth.

“Pray, give me leave to stay, my lady,” Honor said. “I wish to help you.”

From the corner of the hearth Catherine glanced over her shoulder at Honor. The smallest smile of indulgence came to her lips, colorless despite the fire’s orange glow. “Help me?” she said softly, almost to herself. She looked back at the flames. “It’s poor Walter who needs help now. And that I have just left in the merciful hands of God.” A slight Spanish accent still clung to her speech, even after twenty-seven years in England; when she was fatigued it became pronounced.

“But that’s just it,” Honor blurted. “I know about Walter. That he carried your letters out.”

Catherine’s head turned slightly, again with that small, sharp movement of annoyance. “You mean, you know that the Cardinal claims it.”

Honor took a deep breath. She would say what she had come to say. “More than that. I know Walter took your letters to Dr. de Athequa, who took them to Ambassador Mendoza. I know that this is how you correspond with the Emperor.” She moved to the other corner of the hearth to be nearer the Queen. “My lady,” she entreated, “let me take Walter’s place. Let me help you!”

Catherine turned to her with an expression that was both surprised and wary. Honor watched the fire’s shadows play unkindly over a face whose cares, like weights, had begun to sag the flesh. The Queen was forty-two, six years older than the King. She no longer danced, and rarely rode, and her waist had thickened from repeated pregnancies—six children born, five of them buried. It was a decade since her womb had quickened, and the only living child she had been able to give the husband she adored was a girl, not the male heir he craved.

Pity squeezed Honor’s heart. How the Queen must have suffered through these past months. “The King’s great matter,” that’s what everyone called it. Such a pompous phrase, Honor thought with scorn. What was so grand, she wanted to know, about a man in middle years infatuated to the point of irrationality? But the besotted King had actually asked the Pope to annul his marriage. Now, the Queen—everyone—was waiting for the decision from Rome.

Honor knew that if the Pope were to grant the King his wish the consequences for the Queen could be terrible: imprisonment in a convent, the bastardization of their twelve-year-old daughter, the Princess Mary—even, perhaps, the Queen’s murder finessed by some overzealous minion of Wolsey.

And it had all begun, Honor realized with some wonder, while she was living at Chelsea, playing at archery and musing over Plato, blithely ignorant of the dark currents swirling at court and in Rome. After eighteen years with Catherine of Aragon as his wife, King Henry had privately commanded Cardinal Wolsey to dissolve the marriage. Wolsey had special authority, being a papal legate, and the King had apparently assumed that the Pope’s agreement would be automatic; annulments of royal marriages were not uncommon.

The King had grounds, strange and shaky though they seemed to Honor. The marriage was the King’s first, but it was the Queen’s second, and that was the crux of his argument. When the King had married her Catherine had been the widow of his brother, Arthur. Scripture technically forbade matrimony with a brother’s wife, so it had been necessary, all those years ago, to secure from the former Pope a dispensation to allow the union. Therefore, when the King decided he wanted his freedom, Cardinal Wolsey had called a secret tribunal and pronounced judgment that the Queen’s second marriage—outlawed, after all, by scripture—had never been legal; that the King was, in the eyes of God, a bachelor. But then, before anyone—even the Queen—had been told the tribunal’s extraordinary verdict, the unthinkable had happened in Rome. The Emperor Charles’s mutinous troops had sacked the city, inflicting a massacre that had shaken Europe to its core. And Charles—Holy Roman Emperor of the vast German lands, ruler of Flanders, King of Spain, lord of the limitless New World—was Queen Catherine’s nephew.

Overnight, King Henry’s dream of a quick divorce had evaporated, for as soon as the Queen was told of his decision to cast her aside she dispatched an appeal to the Pope, a man now wholly under the domination of her invincible nephew. The English King’s private matrimonial case had suddenly exploded into an international crisis. The dithering Pope, badgered by the King’s envoys one day and threatened by the Emperor’s the next, wrung his hands, it was said, and wept like a woman before all of them—and stalled. For nine months the King and Queen had remained at this impasse.

And Cardinal Wolsey’s impatience with the Queen had grown thin. Everyone knew he chafed at what he saw as her intransigence against the King’s wishes. Worse, he feared military intervention by the Emperor’s forces. So he kept the Queen a virtual prisoner in her own palace. He maintained informants in her household, read every letter he could lay hands on that went from her desk, and refused to let her see the Emperor’s ambassador in private. Nevertheless, Honor knew that the Queen had managed to eke out a fragile line of communication using her secretary, Walter, her confessor, Dr. de Athequa, and Ambassador Mendoza to get her letters across to Charles in Spain. But now, Wolsey had discovered at least one link of that lifeline, and had broken it.

“Please, allow me, my lady,” Honor urged. “I can do everything Walter did. I can write your letters. You know my Latin is as good as his. And I could deliver them, too.”

Catherine’s wary expression had not changed. “Would you? Why?”

Honor hesitated, but only to search for the most concise words. She said simply, “You have been wronged.”

Catherine’s breath flew out of her as if she had been physically struck by the justice of the statement. “God knows!” she cried. Impulsively, she reached for Honor’s hand in a gesture as filled with passion as her previous motions had been with caution. “I knew you were one to be trusted!” Quickly, she controlled herself. “But, my dear, there are grave risks. I am not at all sure it is right to ask such dangerous things of you.”

“You are asking nothing, Your Grace. I am offering. And as for risk,” she shrugged, “I have tasted of that before now.”

Catherine’s grasp on Honor’s hand tightened. “Oh, I will thank Our Lord for sending you to me.”

Honor’s smile contained a glint of playfulness. “Do not forget to thank Sir Thomas, too, my lady, for my Latin. Had he not transformed the barbarian in me, I would be no good to you at all.”

She was glad to see the warm smile that the Queen returned. “Indeed,” Catherine replied with feeling. “A prayer will go, as well, for More, my dear friend.” Her manner quickly sobered. “Can you begin at once, my dear?”

“Of course.”

“Good. It is imperative that I tell Charles to send me lawyers. Ones experienced in dealing with the Roman court. The Cardinal has cowed the English advocates. I must have men from Charles’s Flemish provinces, immune to Wolsey’s threats. And I must have them now.”

Honor quickly sat and took up pen and paper. She wrote at length, following the Queen’s Latin dictation. With the plea to the Emperor completed, Honor folded the letter. “And now, my lady,” she said, “where shall I find Dr. de Athequa?”

Catherine frowned. With a sudden movement she came to the table, took up the letter, and held it to her bosom. “No. I have changed my mind. You shall not endanger yourself for me. I’ll find another way.”

Honor bit her lip. She was not afraid; was ready to take the risk. But she knew, too, that she had no business contradicting a Queen. “How, my lady?” she asked gently. “There is no other way.”

“One must be found. The Cardinal may have already squeezed poor Walter for de Athequa’s name. I will not cast you, too, into such perilous seas.”

Honor sat silent a moment. Suddenly, she brightened. “The masque,” she said.

“Masque?”

“Tonight. At my lord Cardinal’s. He is hosting a masque for the King and the Lady, and…” She saw the Queen flinch, and stopped. “The Lady” was the title that everyone at court, whatever their allegiance, applied to Anne Boleyn.

“Pardon, Your Grace,” Honor went on, hating to give the Queen pain. “But you see, as Sir Thomas is invited to the masque, I am too. And Ambassador Mendoza is sure to be among the guests. I can take the letter directly to him. It will be so easy. No need to go through Dr. de Athequa at all.”

Catherine appeared hopeful, but unconvinced.

“I promise,” Honor smiled, “I shall take every care.”

Catherine looked for a long moment into Honor’s eyes. Then, with a small, grave nod, she gave her consent. She touched Honor’s cheek with a gesture of motherly affection. “Every care,” she said earnestly. “I’ll have no ill befall you.” Her warm smile broke through. “Else, how shall I answer to Sir Thomas?”

A hundred candles blazed in Cardinal Wolsey’s great hall at Hampton Court. Wall-sized Flemish tapestries—miracles of artistry in gold, ruby, and sky blue threads—shimmered with larger-than-life-size scenes of the Virtues and the Vices. Many of the latter were being enacted with relish among the gaudily dressed crowd of ladies and gentlemen. Their laughing voices and the scuffle of their dancing feet all but drowned out the lusty efforts of thirty musicians in the minstrels’ gallery. The pungency of spiced wine and roasted meats on side tables mingled in the air with sweet herbs crushed underfoot, and with perfumed sweat. The King had disappeared soon after the dancing had begun. So had the Lady. But the revelers carried on.

Honor skirted the perimeter of dancers and moved toward the doors. She tried to keep her walk unhurried, tried not to show her excitement. She passed several groups, and could hardly believe that no one noticed her heightened color. Matrons gossiped and munched beside the food-laden tables. Gentlemen gambled noisily over dice in an alcove. Girls cooed around one of their number who had partnered a duke’s son. In the distance, gray-haired statesmen conferring under the gallery surrounded the corpulent figure of Wolsey swathed in his red cardinal’s robes. Honor’s hands felt clammy as she thought of Wolsey, but she walked on. No one stopped her as she left the hall.

She was responding to the signal Ambassador Mendoza had given her. Upon her arrival an hour ago she had gone to him, and they had arranged the signal in a swift, whispered exchange. When he gave it, he told her, she was to wait a quarter hour, then meet him outside in the garden. So she had waited—had watched the dancers complete a galliard; had rejected two offers to dance; had been jostled by an angry gambler loudly searching for a man who owed him money. The wait had seemed endless.

The hardest trial had been keeping her secret from Sir Thomas. Seeing her, he had detached himself from the circle of statesmen around Wolsey, and, smiling, had come to speak to her. She knew that, councilor and friend to the King though he was, Sir Thomas sympathized with the Queen, and she could barely contain herself as he commented on the gathering and quipped about the young coxcombs. Her mission for the Queen had almost bubbled out of her.

Now, past all of these distractions, she made her way outside to the knot garden that overlooked the river.

Under moonlight, a dusting of undisturbed snow glinted over the frozen garden. The chill air bit Honor’s throat as she hurried with quick breaths along a gravel walk. She hugged herself against the cold—she had left her cloak inside, for donning it might have aroused suspicion. She made for a latticed structure at the end of the walk. It was a kind of bower, three-sided, and covered over with cut holly boughs. A month before, Wolsey had ordered it erected for his comfort during a day of Christmas festivities when a choir of children sang for him and his household.

Honor saw a movement beside the bower—the swirl of a long robe—and recognized the shadowed silhouette of the Imperial ambassador. She reached the spot, and saw that he was shivering: he, too, had foreseen the imprudence of wearing his cloak. Don Inigo de Mendoza was a wiry, middle-aged Spaniard of high family and haughty disposition, and Honor could not suppress a smile at the sight of the proud gentleman clutching his robe’s collar to his chin, shoulders hunched, teeth chattering.

“Ah! Mistress Larke,” he whispered, taking her elbow, plainly anxious to get on with their business. Together, they stepped into the bower. Honor passed him the Queen’s letter. She said, “Her Grace needs this in the Emperor’s hands immediately.” Mendoza nodded, then quickly left the bower. His footsteps crunched on the icy path, then faded to nothing. The mission had been accomplished in a moment.

Honor felt cheated: what an anticlimactic end to her hours of trepidation! She smiled at her own disappointment. What, after all, had she expected? That Cardinal Wolsey himself would spring up out of a garden urn? Shake snow off his great bulk and command her arrest? No. All was quiet. From windows in the hall, music reached her in faint pulses. She looked down at the River Thames. Lanterns bobbed among the clutter of ferries and barges tethered to the pier where bundled-up boatmen waited to carry guests back to the city. From the pier, blazing torches lined the way up to the palace terrace. No band of guards was marching toward her to take her off to prison. She shrugged with a smile.

She was freezing. She took a step to leave the bower. A man’s voice startled her.

“A dangerous business, mistress.”

Honor halted. The voice had come from inside the bower. She turned. A man was sitting on a bench tucked into the corner. He sat sideways, his feet on the bench, his knees drawn up under a heavy cloak. His face was completely in shadow under the holly boughs.

Honor took a wary step back. She and Mendoza had said little in their meeting, but it was enough.

“Yes,” the man said quietly. “I heard.” Three words only, but their sum was an unmistakable threat.

Honor swallowed. In the confined space she smelled brandy from his breath. She noticed a leather bottle lying on the bench beside him. Perhaps, she thought, he was nothing more than a drunkard, come out here to drink alone. Could she turn his intimidation around, use it against him? “What are you doing in the Cardinal’s garden?” she asked sternly.

He gave a sharp nod toward the palace and snorted. “Avoiding a jackass inside. Claims I owe him dice money. And he’s been known to rely on his sword to settle accounts.” He chuckled. “No gentleman, I fear.”

He had not moved. Lounging against the bower wall, he seemed to Honor harmless enough. “Good night, sir,” she said firmly. She moved to go.

His sword scraped from its scabbard. The blade shot across the bower opening, blocking Honor’s escape. She gasped.

“Oh, don’t go yet, Mistress Larke,” he said calmly.

“How do you know my name?” she asked, unnerved.

“Your tryst partner greeted you by it. As I said, I do have ears.” In a sudden, clean movement, he swung his legs to the ground without lowering the sword. He looked up at her, his face now lit by a shaft of moonlight. Honor recognized him. This was the man who had almost lost his hand to the butcher’s cleaver. The one Anne Boleyn had rescued. Thornleigh. And if he was Anne’s confederate, Honor realized, his interest lay in discrediting the Queen. To Wolsey.

“You should also know,” she said, pretending bravado, “that I am the ward of Sir Thomas More. He’s just inside, sir, and he will not appreciate me being harassed in this fashion.”

Thornleigh let out a short, mocking whistle. “You frighten me, mistress. Two adversaries inside. I may have to stay out here all night. So do take pity. Your company would be such a comfort while I’m marooned here. We could keep one another warm. You’re shivering.”

She saw that he was toying with her. Well, if that was all he intended, perhaps a little more bravado could get her out of this. She hugged herself and answered with disdain. “Thank you, no. Now, let me pass.”

“Oh, come, come,” he said pleasantly. “I’m agreeing to take on the heavy responsibility of your secret. Don’t you think you owe me something for that service?” He lowered his sword, leaving her way clear to go. “You don’t look stupid,” he added meaningfully, laying the sword on the bench. “And my price is very reasonable.”

So, she thought, he was threatening to inform on her after all. She accepted defeat. “How much do you want?”

Thornleigh scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see. Moncton in there claims twenty pounds…”

“Twenty pounds!” she blurted. How could she ask Sir Thomas for even half that amount without arousing his suspicions? It was insufferable. She recalled Margery’s earlier comment, and snapped, “I understood that your wife pays your gambling debts.”

His face hardened. But he went on as if she had not spoken. “…but Moncton’s a cheat, and I have no intention of satisfying him. So, all I’ll ask of you, dear lady, is one kiss.”

She was astonished. It was an idiotic request. He held her position at court—her very life, perhaps—in his hands. He could ask for anything. “You’re brain-sick,” she said scornfully.

“Only when I see a pretty face.”

His amusement at her discomfort infuriated her. “And if I refuse?”

He chuckled. “You are not in a strong bargaining position here, mistress.”

It was true. She imagined the consequences if he reported her to Wolsey. Walter, she knew, was already locked away in a prison cell. Being tortured? She shivered, and from more than just the cold.

He shrugged. “Only a kiss,” he repeated reasonably.

She answered, as if uttering a curse, “Very well.” She drew herself up and clenched her jaw. Her folded arms tightened into rigid armor. The iced air pinched her nostrils. “Let’s get it over with.”

He stood, and Honor’s lips parted in surprise; she had forgotten how tall he was. He stepped close to her. He took her face between his hands and lifted it to his. His lips touched hers. She tasted the sweet residue of brandy. She felt his hand slide to her throat, felt her own pulse beat against his warm palm. His other arm went lower and drew her to him, his cloak almost engulfing her. He held her gently, yet she felt immobilized by his strength. As her every muscle softened, her mouth opened under his. Her arms dropped to her sides. She felt the heat of his body, his hands on her as if he owned her. And she knew that, for this moment, he did.

He drew his face away. She heard him laugh softly. “Open your eyes, mistress,” he said. “The bargain was for just one kiss, no more. Sorry.”

Her eyes flew open.

He chuckled. “You’ve never been kissed before, have you? But of course not. Not Sir Thomas More’s ward. Oh, yes, I’ve heard the tales. Sir Thomas the Pious. I understand the man keeps such a chaste household, he actually segregates his servants so that male and female do not fraternize. Is it true?”

Honor wrenched herself from his arms. How dare this lecherous drunkard ridicule Sir Thomas! “This transaction is concluded, sir,” she spat. “I trust I have now bought your silence?”

“Cheap, wasn’t it?” He laughed. “But, I must be content,” he said with mock resignation, “for the court, you know, is a buyer’s market.”

“And your skill in bartering, small,” she retorted. “No wonder you need a rich wife.”

His look at her darkened into one of scorn. “Well,” he said, looking at her mouth, “all of us around here must sell whatever we can.”

The insult was too plain. She raised her hand to strike him. He caught her wrist, held it a moment, then dropped it. He flopped down nonchalantly onto the bench and took up the bottle. “Go back inside, mistress,” he said. “You’re cold.”

Honor turned on her heel and left him.