Читать книгу Royal Blood - Rona Sharon - Страница 13

For I felt myself drawn from my own image

And into a solitary wandering stag

From wood to wood quickly I am transformed

And still I flee the belling of my hounds.

—Petrarch: Poem XXIII

King Henry’s hunting party, led by a pack of boisterous hounds, galloped across sprawling hills of green and through woods of beech in a triumph of bursting virility and equine muscle. The hunt had begun at daybreak, before the king rose. The Greenwich Park huntsmen had chosen a specific deer and positioned themselves with teams of dogs in a few strategic places around the hunting area. When the king’s party arrived, the hart was roused and the chase began.

Horns blared ahead, informing the main hunting party of the progress of the deer. Glowing with the exuberance of the sport, King Henry brought his party to a standstill at the top of a knoll overlooking the lush hunting ground and shielded his eyes against the gray-white morning sun.

Michael, sluggish and brain-numb, drew rein alongside Stanley. The hounds, fresh and alert after a good night’s sleep in the royal kennels, surrounded him thereupon, barking alarum like sergeants-at-arms berating a slothful straggler, drooling rosaries, and affrighting the horses.

The king, the archers of the royal bodyguard, and the noble huntsmen drew back to calm their jittery coursers. Michael flushed to the roots of his hair. He was isolated by the snarling dogs and the hound-boys striving to gentle them, aware of the derogatory glowers lobbed his way. Mortified, he brandished his hand swiftly like a sword over the hostile bloodhounds. “Sede!”

Astonishingly the fearsome dogs slumped on their haunches, yapping like penitent puppies, heads bowed meekly. Mentally wiping his brow, Michael nodded at the awestruck king and his men and stirred Archangel to Stanley’s side, as a boy seeking refuge in his mum’s kirtle.

“Well done, runt!” Stanley laughed heartily. “Next you shall teach the monstrous beasts how to tumble, dance, and balance cups on their brown noses. Ho there, my minion.” He soothed his agitated horse as it shied away from Michael. “You do not care for hulking Irish trolls, do you? They have a penchant for inhabiting foul underground places, under bridges, under the palace…”

“Ha-ha. How did you know where to find me? I have yet to understand the geography of the depressing burrows, myself.”

“I asked.” Stanley kept soothing his restless mount. “Herne is a splendid hunter. Harry sits his brother, Hermes. The surest way to please our king is to give him a fine courser.” Or falcons, Michael added silently. Stanley smiled at him. “So…did you lose a wager or something?”

“No,” Michael growled; he was tired, irritable, and in no mood to be gulled.

Stanley could not help himself. “Then how come you are sleeping with the rodents?”

“Forsooth, I got it already. I should have bribed the confounded usher for better lodging. But how the deuce was I supposed to know the man was peddling when he insisted the best quarters have all been snatched by the early arrivance?”

“Hmm.” Stanley scratched his beard gravely. “The bones to the latecomer, eh? I reckon His Grace of Suffolk who arrived early this morn with his wife the Lady Mary, our king’s lady sister and the Dowager Queen of France, will be bedded down with the horses tonight.” A grin broke out on his face. “Aw, do not give me that look! I shall burst into tears. Speaking to you this morn is like bearbaiting.”

“So don’t bait.” Michael, his sleep-deprived brain lagging behind the conversation, recalled the illuminating advice dispensed to him last night, courtesy of Princess Renée de Valois. “Yes, well, I’m seeing Earl Worcester, one of the White Sticks, later today to discuss this business of my lodging. By dusk, I will have relocated to a softer, more salubrious bed, be at rest as to that.”

“Ho-hoa! The youngling learns! Methinks a clever bird has been singing in your ear. Which one? The robin redbreast or the lily bluebird?”

“Bluebird.” Blue-blooded, blue-eyed, blue-blazoned. She was never speaking to him again. She had wanted to dance with him, protect him, give him the kiss of peace, and he had spurned her—to be a plaguey hero! So he had frustrated the plot, confiscated the duke’s dagger, but there were no laurels for this victor. None knew of his triumph, except Princess Renée. Blockhead.

“Why are you shaking your head?”

“Not why, at whom, myself. I am daft.”

“Oh no.” Stanley scowled. “I would not slobber after her, runt. Waste of time, bad business. Her king won’t thank you. Nor will ours. She is a pretty painting to be admired from afar.”

Michael felt something akin to unfledged contrariness well up in him. He felt querulous. He wanted to inform Stanley, growlingly, that he didn’t give a toss who had sired her, that her being predestined to be sold at market like a broodmare to the highest bidding prince did not mean the lady knew not her mind and had no say in her choice of companions. She liked him. She was drawn to him. He knew it. He had sensed it the night before when he kissed her hand.

Lugubriously Stanley was right. He had no business tomcatting after a maidenly princess of France while duty-bound to serve his noble lord and fulfill his pledge of honor. He sighed. There were Annes and Cáits aplenty to alleviate any future discomforts the bluebird might rekindle. Enthrall but do not love; be loved but do not be thralled. Sound advice. Resist at the beginning, Ovid lectured. If one did not stamp out the disease of love at the start, one was lost. Oh, he was a fount of saws: We always strive after what is forbidden and desire what is denied us. Also Ovid.

Stanley’s groan alerted Michael to the rider coming to join them. “Hastings, how now?”

That was all the invitation Sir George Hastings required to recount his hottest feats on the Welsh border in the service of his brother-in-law, Buckingham: hanging horse thieves, drubbing local dissenters, quelling sedition. What a dull, painful-to-be-around braggart, Michael grimaced. Anne’s husband. No wonder she dallied. The man was a moldwarp, hairy and unnecessary.

It was King Henry who saved them from the affliction. “There!” The king pointed northeast to a lush hillock. The hart raised its shiny neck from a tussock of grass and stared at the looming riders. In the early light Michael saw its ingenuous brown eyes round in apprehension, could almost feel its heart accelerating its rhythm. Suddenly it took off. The king kneed his bay to a gallop. The hunting party flew after the king, fur-lined surcoats swelling in the wind, boisterous shouts letting whomever was watching know they were a hardy, savage gang of huntsmen, full of vim and vigor. The earth shook with the force of the hoofs tearing downhill, jumping over hedgerows of bracken, directed by the bloody-hunting dogs and the bray of bugles.

The hart fled at an astonishing speed, confounding the huntsmen scattered round the park, whereupon they communicated their confusion with horns. Doggedly in pursuit, the king’s party chased the hart with bows in hand all the way to the stream, where the hart hounds lost the scent. The frustrated dogs leaped back and forth along the mossy bank, barking up a storm.

A flock of birds exploded into flight from the treetops as Michael reined in between Stanley and another fellow. King Henry addressed his head huntsman. “Why has my buck escaped?”

“I have never seen the like, sire,” the huntsman mumbled apologetically. “Grew wings and vanished into thin air, it did. Something must have spooked it viciously, Your Majesty.”

“See? I told you to wash,” Stanley snickered.

The taunt glanced off Michael. His keen senses were picking up strange sounds: squirrels fleeing the nearby trees, rabbits diving into burrows, grasshoppers hopping off; a wholesale mad flight of animals. Before long, eerie silence surrounded the hunting party.

“You should have bloody well used toils to fence the buck in,” said the fellow to Michael’s right. Then he tossed Michael a man-to-man grin. “Incompetent addlepate.”

Stanley leaned in, grinning. “I see your sportsmanship has grown rustic while you have been rusticating, Your Grace. We are here to shoot the buck, not let the dogs upon it.”

The fellow snorted amusedly. “My Grace thanks you for sharing that morsel from your vast pantry of wisdom and perspicuity, but as you have shrewdly pointed out, Stanley, we are here to catch the buck in our cross-bolts, not fritter the day away sniffing after it like dogs.”

“Little wonder the hapless creature decided its life should not be made sport of. Michael, I present my longtime brother in arms, disports, and taverns, Charles Brandon, His Grace the Duke of Suffolk. Charles, Michael Devereaux is the Earl of Tyrone’s liege man and heir.”

Suffolk turned aside in the creaky leather saddle to offer Michael his gloved hand. “Tyrone, eh? Never had the pleasure. Still fighting the blue-faced devils in Ireland?”

“More like keeping the peace, Your Grace.” Michael gave the hand a strong squeeze.

“Like a big mouser, Tyrone keeps the mice down, eh?” Stanley put in.

Michael shrugged. He liked the Irish. They were valiant, good-natured people. “They are not exactly mice….”

“Bloody savages,” muttered Suffolk. “I trust my Lord Tyrone is grooming you to take over the governing of that island. I would not care to replace him. Say, is that a flask of Irish firewater tinkling in your pouch perchance?”

“Uisce?” Michael grinned. “No.”

“Pity. Stanley, know you of any Irish taverns that serve the golden poison?”

“None that would serve Your Grace. You have been successfully banned from them all.”

Suffolk smiled at Michael. “Heartening, is it not, to know one is successful at something?”

Michael smiled back. Charles Brandon, he recalled, was the son of a standard bearer, whose close friendship with King Henry yielded a dukedom and the hand in marriage of a princess.

The king was getting restless. He had already sent the huntsmen on foot to reconnoiter the woods beyond the stream, see if they could locate the fleeing hart.

“Why the delay?” Michael asked Stanley. “We could scout the grounds on horseback.”

“Once the game escapes beyond the boundaries of Greenwich Park, we proceed with caution lest we kill the wrong buck. A blunder will result in embarrassment for Harry, as he’ll be forced to pay compensation to the owner of the other buck, not to mention invalidate his prowess as a distinguished huntsman. Best be certain afore we proceed.”

“I can tell you one thing for a certainty. The hart has crossed the stream. Did you not notice the animals of the forest fleeing? Look around. There is not a bird in sight. Some great predator is on the prowl. Nature is still, as if holding its breath, but only this side of the stream. Odd.”

Wide yet shallow, the stream’s cool waters rushed through amorphous boulders that caused rivulets and frothing. What sort of marauder would hesitate to cross water? On the opposite bank life thrived: rodents, crawlers, insects, and amphibians went about their business unperturbedly. As he regarded the lush vegetation beyond the stream, Michael glimpsed the regal hart, red-gold coat glistening with water, brown eyes wide and alert, hiding among the trees and spying on the hunting party. “There it is,” he said softly, smiling. “In the leafy copse.”

Stanley and Suffolk stared at Michael, then squinted at the area he pointed at. “You see it?”

“There. In front of us. See how vigilantly he observes our party?”

Stanley glanced at the king and lowered Michael’s hand, murmuring, “Best be certain.”

“I am. There is the buck. I see it.” Were Stanley’s eyes blind with the pin and web?

“If he says he sees it, we ought to let him lead us to it,” Suffolk argued, and stepped his horse toward the king. “It appears we have a scout amongst us with a bloodhound’s snout.”

Stanley gave Michael a gimlet eye. “How can you tell it is the same buck?”

The question startled Michael into silence. The scent. Jupiter’s thunder, he could not admit to picking out the scent of a specific hart. He was hard put to believe it himself. He just knew. “Irish methods,” he hedged jokingly. “A trick I learned from the blue-deviled savages.”

“So-ho! You have spotted my buck, have you?” King Henry drew close with Suffolk. “Well, where is it?” He surveyed the trees beyond the stream. “Point it to me.”

“You had best be right,” Stanley whispered to Michael’s ears alone. He was not smiling.

“The buck hides in the thicket a hundred yards in front of Your Majesty,” Michael said.

“Well, what do we wait for? Lead us to!” King Henry started crossing the stream.

Michael was waylaid by Stanley. His friend wanted to say something but changed his mind, shook his head, and followed the king into the stream. As soon as they emerged on the opposite bank, the same phenomenon occurred: a frantic migration of wildlife and no sign of the deer. Some of the king’s gentlemen voiced their doubts. The king hung his eyes on Michael.

His confidence ebbing, Michael surveyed the area. Sure enough, the scent was strong. There was another telltale sign: rhythmic thudding. Hoofs or…heartbeats? His pulse remained calm and steady, whereas the unidentifiable thuds were frenetic, like a hammer hitting the anvil, faster and faster. “This way!” He spurred Archangel into the clustered birch trees, giving chase after the fleeing hart. The thudding grew stronger. King and party were hard behind him. They were forced to ride at a maddening sumpter pace to keep from getting prized out of the saddle by a twisted leafy bough or thick roots sticking out of the ground, while the agile, fleet-footed hart, unimpeded by such concerns, drew farther and farther away.

A league into the woods Michael began to rue his outspokenness. He could not see the hart; he was following it as a hound would, by scent, sound, and instinct. I am gone mad, he thought as he let his senses—or rather lack thereof—guide him onward. He should have stayed abed, or leastways heeded Stanley’s warning. Taking the King of England on a wild hart chase to the next shire was probably not the brightest approach to curry favor with him. What a colossal gaucherie it would be should they be forced to turn back empty-handed. Mayhap he ought to call this off now instead of later and spare himself the greater embarrassment—

All of a sudden the hart halted, sweating, panting, slavering…

“Not far!” Michael cried over his shoulder, his confidence restored. Ignoring the leaves and offshoots swatting at his face, he rode faster for fear the hart would break into a dead run again.

The hart remained put; its scent grew stronger, as did the thudding. The hunting party with Michael at the lead was almost upon it. Its squeal of terror pierced the air. Birds flapped from their nests in distant treetops, soared into the sky, and circled high above their heads, screeching vociferously, as if alerting the animals to the formidable prowler invading their realm.

“There!” King Henry pointed at the ill-fated buck caught in a thicket by its majestic antlers.

The hunting party dismounted, crunching dry leaves and twigs under their boots. Awestruck, they approached the mythical golden creature with admiration in their eyes. In ancient times, the regal hart would be protected by the Melians, fierce nymphs that had germinated from drops of Uranus’s blood, when his son Cronos castrated the Titan of the sky as retribution for imprisoning the children of the earth goddess Gaia in their mother’s bowels, thus depriving them of sunlight for all eternity. King Henry drew his huntsman knife. Michael made the mistake of looking into the hart’s fearful eyes as the king made the kill. All at once he felt his heart bursting, his lungs burning. Warm blood spilled to the ground. He stumbled off to hide behind a thick trunk. He was in agony. His eyes hurt. Bitter saliva filled his maw. What dementia was this? He could not count the times he had hunted in Ireland. Not once had he felt like this—his skin feverish, his senses raw, blood rushing thick and hot in his veins, as if he were about to faint. Only before dawn.

Michael leaned back against the rough-barked tree, got out the bottle stashed in his sporran, and bled it dry. I must quit it, he thought despairingly. He conquers who conquers himself.

The horns signed the mort of the deer, summoning the huntsmen to carry back the game. As Michael, his sanity restored, stepped from the brushwood, Stanley grabbed his shoulder. “How now, my brave-hearted! Where have you been gadding? Come. Harry requests you attend him.”

Michael steeled himself for answering questions for which he had no answers. There was no credible explanation for the insanie afflicting him. Stanley said, “Your Grace, I present Michael Devereaux, my Lord Tyrone’s man and legal heir, arrived yesterday from Ireland.”

Michael knelt before the king, head bowed, heart thumping against his ribcage.

“Devereaux.” King Henry’s tone was pensive and amused. “Are you the one responsible for the new Irish birds prattling pompously like some Celtic parliament in my mews?”

The query coaxed laughter from the onlookers and a grin from Michael’s grimly set mouth. “Aye, so please Your Grace. My most noble protector sends Your Majesty the Lord’s blessing and pledges his love and ever-steadfast fealty.”

“If your loquacious gifts share your talent for snagging prey, I daresay we shall see some superb hawking. Shan’t we, gentlemen?” His comment was accepted with murmurs of consent. “Are you the son of Sir John Devereaux of Chartley of his second marriage?”

The murmurs took on a different note. “Aye, Your Grace,” Michael confirmed, baffled.

“Begotten by an attainted traitor and raised by our most valiant loyalist, an interesting breed. My Lord Tyrone wrote us of your coming and alerted us to expect great feats from you.”

Michael was dumbfounded. His sire a traitor? Surely not! Your noble sire, who fought like a lion and died for his king at Blackheath during the Cornish rebellion, had sworn me to take his son, begotten off a second wife… Why should his worthy lord tell him falsehoods?

He scanned the curious faces of the lords whose ranks he strove to infiltrate. Most of them had never met his father. He was relieved to note that the drone of speculation carried no venom. Only Walter the Peacock looked aghast. The king said, “My lords, we will judge this lion by his own claws. Rise, Devereaux. We are well pleased.”

Renée was in high spirits. Her dear friend the Lady Mary had arrived shortly after Mass. Their reunion, sweeter for Mary’s surprise, was a muddle of tears, laughter, and inquiries. Mary was happy, beautiful, radiant with love. She had two babies, Lord Henry and Lady Frances, and was expecting her third child. Two years Renée’s senior, Mary was bright, headstrong, with gray eyes, a fiery mane, a Grecian profile, cool pallor, and regal height. From the moment they had fallen into each other’s arms, she could not stop prating about her husband and the changes in her life. Renée, burdened by forbidden secrets, proved the perfect listener to the cheerful narration.

“Henry was furious. Knowing our hearts, he still made Charles swear he would not propose to me when he sent him to fetch me from France. When he learned of our nuptials, conducted in secret and haste and without royal consent, he flew into a rage, labeling Charles an overreaching traitor and opportunist and swore he would not see us again. Charles was his closest friend and I his cherished sister, and yet he was hard put to bless our union with the old men on the council clamoring for an execution or a lengthy imprisonment for my husband. Thanks to Wolsey’s intervention with the council, Charles escaped the gibbet, and I was spared the heartache of mourning my dearest lord and of premature widowhood. Henry fined us heavily and banished us from court till the storm blew over and his wrath cooled.”

“But you are restored to favor. That is wondrous!”

Mary’s eyes shone. “All is well now. He was with us at Abingdon last month and was much content, for no man came to tell him of the death of any person from the plague, as they were wont daily. And how have you done since last we saw, Renée? You are very quiet.”

Renée sighed. Mary was bound to hear of her indiscretion. She did not care for her friend to get the sordid version from strangers. So she told Mary about Raphael. Unbosoming herself to a sympathetic, trustworthy ear was a relief. They had become friends during a difficult period in both their lives. Renée had lost her mother to illness. Mary had just become the young bride of an old king in a foreign country. Discovering they had much in common had been their salvation. King Louis’s death had liberated Renée of a despotic sire and Mary of an unwanted husband. The English Rose was free to marry her true love: Charles Brandon, the first Duke of Suffolk. Parting with Mary had been a wrench. She had grieved more over the separation from Mary than the death of her sire and inevitably drifted toward the Lady Marguerite, the fickle witch. Seeing Mary so blissful was a breath of fresh, blossom-scented air. Mary had achieved the impossible: she had married an upstart and gotten away with it. Her success and happiness instilled hope in Renée. If an English princess of the blood could do it, why not a French one?

“A painter?” Mary raised a reddish eyebrow when Renée finished her story. “Why not settle on a gentleman of noble parentage and of fair demesnes?”

“Bloodlines mean naught to me, and I am dowered aplenty. I have the duchy of Chartres and Brittany. As soon as my banishment is over, Raphael and I shall retire to the countryside and live contentedly, as you and Charles do.”

“Come now, Renée. Be reasonable. Long-Nose will make your lover disappear and contract a marriage for you. I say choose a pleasing man from among the king my brother’s friends and marry in secret, as I have done. Leastways you shall have a say in your future and be happy.”

“I shall never be content with a man other than my beloved Raphael.”

“Contentment is a relative term. The instant one gets one’s heart’s desire, one wants more. My darling lord loathes the country. He misses court life. He hungers for offices, for amusements, for wars. I plan improvements to Westhorpe Hall, our seat in Suffolk. He plans to raise a brick London residence on his ancestral lands by the Thames.” She sighed. “And what of you, Renée? You are the perfect courtier, bred for power and intrigue. With your brain and application, would you be content growing vines and—”

“Apples, for cider and brandy, barley for sweet ale, buckwheat for galettes…” Closing her eyes, Renée could taste Breton butter crêpes filled with minced apples, cream, and black currant on her tongue, slicked back with a cup of lambig, the delectable Breton apple brandy.

Mary smiled. “So we have established that you will be content, but would your painter?”

“So long as we have paint.”

As the gentlemen had gone hunting, Renée knew not whether Michael Devereaux had evaded Buckingham’s dagger. However, as there was no talk of dead people behind the Venus tapestry, she assumed the golden impostor had been successful and hoped the duke would not lose heart.

With her improved humor came a longing to bask in the sun and a scheme was born withal. She ran her idea by Mary, who declared it a stroke of brilliance. Together they approached Queen Katherine and made a case in favor of dressing up to lie in wait for His Majesty’s hunting party as the gentlemen returned from the hunt. What a delightful jest it would be, they said, should Diana the Huntress and her maidens surprise the hunting party with an al fresco midday repast on a lush patch of green in the park. The proposal was a winner, the queen matching exuberance with the silliest of the maids of honor, who, Renée thought, were very silly indeed.

Orders were given to the officers of the household. On the noon hour bell, the queen and her ladies, gowned in vivacious spring colors and accompanied by the disgarnished court deprived of the gallants out hunting with the king, set out to find the perfect locale for the ambush.

Dressed in a cerulean habit with a matching plumed hat, Renée spent the ride chatting with Mary, laughing with Wyatt, a poet and flatterer extraordinaire, and caroling with the damsels, all mounted on white palfreys. The queen, traveling in her pretty litter, chose a picturesque sward, and the cavalcade dismounted to prepare the surprise reception. Velvet carpets were unfurled, the queen’s chair, padded with her tasseled cushion, was deposited at the center of the stage, pillows were scattered for the ladies to sit upon, boards were erected and covered with fine linen napery, rich plate, and delicacies brought from the queen’s privy kitchen. Trunks from the wardrobe, stuffed with figurative trappings, were cracked open and mobbed, the party hastening to disguise themselves: Queen Katherine as Diana the Huntress with her golden bow and quiver of arrows, the ladies-in-waiting and the maids of honor as the goddess’s nymphs, and the gentlemen, even the severe and ancient ones, masqueraded as creatures of the wild.

Renée found the scenery intoxicating: the welcome shade of trees, lively with birdsong, the rainbow of flowers in early bloom, perfuming the air, beckoning butterflies and buzzing bees. It seemed such a waste to sit and do nothing as they waited for the hunting party to fall upon them.

“Your Majesty.” Renée curtsied to the queen. “I crave leave to gather flowers for wreaths—chaplets for us, garlands for the dishes.”

The queen approved, whereupon half the party scattered to cull basketsful of honeysuckle, yellow cowslips, hawthorn, rosebriar, pansies, gorses, marigold, lavender, white daisies, laurels, lilies of the valley, blossoms, and herbs to garnish and perfume the spectacle.

Renée and Mary strolled together, chatting and gossiping. They hardly noticed their follower until they were overtaken near a bed of thistle. Lady Anne Hastings, dowdily appareled with her rosary in hand, all for the sake of currying favor with Queen Katherine, dipped diffidently. “My Lady Mary. My Lady Renée, I was hoping I might have a word with you. Privily.”

Renée contemplated the sly chameleon. Jade by night, nun by day. She would have said nay with an illuminated N if not for the fact that Anne was Buckingham’s sister and confidante and that maintaining the charade of friendship with Anne could lead to interesting discoveries, such as the how and when Buckingham would strike against the king again. “Mary?”

“Go off. Mind me not.” Mary smiled, petting her invisibly pregnant belly. “I was about to suggest we return to the camp to rest awhile.”

And so, Renée was left alone with Anne. They ambled side by side in silence.

“You are cross with me,” Anne said.

“Cross? Why would I be cross?”

“You were kind to me last night. You rescued me from Surrey’s trap, and I repaid you with a hurtful disservice. I apologize. I would very much like us to be friends. Please forgive me.”

“What disservice?” Renée inquired with interest, suspicions buzzing in her head like bees.

“My husband, Sir George Hastings, arrived this morning. Have you met him?”

“I have not had the pleasure. Has he gone out hunting? Introduce us later, then.”

Anne laughed bitterly. “You would not thank me for that pleasure.”

“Oh?”

“Is it true, about the Italian painter?” At Renée’s appalled expression, she plowed on. “Your pardon. That was rude. I merely ask because I felt…My name is also tainted with scandal.” She plunged into an intimate account of the events that had gotten her packed off to St. Mary’s three years before. She must have reckoned Renée had heard the gossip and hoped to establish a close rapport by unbosoming her disgrace. Renée was silent. “The fair Viking, you fancied him.”

Renée was not used to being jolted twice in the space of a single conversation. The hen was outwitting the fox. Her curiosity whetted, she had to know what had transpired behind the Venus tapestry last night. With her cardsharp visor lowered, she said, “I never fancied him. Did you?”

Anne’s complexion turned a bright red.

Oh. Renée felt something drop inside her. So that’s what had happened behind the arras. Had the duke perceived the switch and abandoned his plan? Or had Michael wrestled with him?

Anne turned and gripped her hands. “Oh, Renée. I must see him again privily. I must! But with George at court, I cannot speak with another man, I cannot even look. After last time…”

Saints! Renée was truly and utterly shocked. Anne was asking her to play the bawd! Red-hot anger surged through her, twisting her into a knot of hostility. It made no sense. In France she had oftentimes played the covert pigeon between the dissolute members of the aristocracy. Lust was a great weakness, an asset, to be exploited in affairs of state, to her royal sire’s advantage. It would be the perfect arrangement to learn of Buckingham’s plans. Why was she hesitating? “I will help you!” she blurted out. “I have done it countless times in France. I master the game.”

“Oh! You are a true confidante! A priceless friend!” Anne hugged her. Renée felt sick.

“The king! The king is coming!” The ecstatic exclamation was followed by a bray of bugles.

Renée and Anne dashed back to the campsite to take their place around the queen. When the hunting party reined in, the Huntress Diana was lounging leisurely in the shade, attended by her nymphs and animals of the forest, sipping wine and gobbling berries, with white palfreys grazing in the background. Renée watched the gallants swing off their shiny mounts and toss reins to grooms. She made out Buckingham, the king’s six minions—Neville, Bryan, Carew, Compton, Norris, and Knevet—Earl Surrey, Sir Walter, faces she had yet to pin names to…Her gaze fell on the triplet at the back: Michael Devereaux, his bearded friend, and a dashing newcomer. The mystery of the latter’s identity was solved when he strode off to Mary and kissed her soundly.

The king was delighted with the surprise. He rewarded his queen with doting that put roses in her cheeks and earned Renée a gold point for merit. She studied Mary and her debonair duke. They beamed together. Did she beam with Raphael? King Henry presented the hero of the hunt, extolling his Irish snout and methods. The Irish eyes locked with Renée’s. She looked away.

Queen Katherine’s ambush put the king in good cheer. Michael thought the mythical scene would have been more convincing without the dicing. But what did he know? The occupants of Olympus might have been avid gamblers, too. His mood was much improved. He had scored his first good point with the king without raising eyebrows.

The party sat down to dinner on the carpets. Chapleted nymphs with flowing sheer scarves surrounded the queen as luscious petals, tempting the eye. Renée, in cerulean, sat between Anne and another lady. He wanted to speak to her but did not know how to approach. She seemed so distant; she would not meet his gaze. He wanted to apologize, to whisper secrets, to steal a kiss of peace. As for Buckingham’s dagger, secreted in his casket, there was not much he could do with it. He could not walk up to the king and say, “Your Majesty, the Duke of Buckingham is working to supplant you. Here is the dagger I wrested from his hand last night when he mistook me for you and tried to stab me.” He had no powerful allies to corroborate the allegation, no mentor to consult. The dagger was unique and had a big S etched in the hilt but lacked the power of speech to admit it had played a part in a failed attempt on King Henry’s life. Buckingham would learn Michael’s identity and say his blade was stolen. His only recourse was to stay on the alert, in case Buckingham should try again, as Michael believed he would.

“Does the French court play games after al fresco feasts?” Wyatt asked Princess Renée.

The assembly, replete with venison and frumenty, leaned in to hear her response so that they could repeat it afterward to unlucky absentees and sound amazingly au fait, stylish, and French.

“Certes,” she answered. “Many games.”

Michael’s mind hardly registered the games she listed; he was preoccupied with ogling her. Her skin was creamy, her hair dark, thick, and glossy, her neck a fragile stem; her pink lips were a perfect rosette, her teeth pearly and even. Her breasts, swelling above the jeweled bodice, were small and intriguing. He marveled that he should become aroused imagining how the pert things looked when his taste tended toward plump dukkys. Everything about her was confection-like, petite and dainty. She glowed with youth and vitality. She exuded fierceness and wit. Above all, he admired her eyes. Vivid, purplish blue, framed with dark eyelashes, the windows to her soul were flames, like the flower-de-luce, the armorial motif of the Valois royal family and of France.

Renée was the brightest jewel in Queen Katherine’s entourage.

I could burn, he thought with foreboding, startled, besieged, heart pounding turbulently. I could burn for this wisp of a woman.

“What is your favorite game, Princess?”

“Cache-cache.” She smiled, her eyes twinkling naughtily.

“Pray, teach us!” King Henry demanded.

“Eh bien”—Renée took a sip of wine, dampening her lips—“the ladies run and hide, and the gentlemen, wearing blindfolds, look for them. When a gentleman catches a lady, he guesses her identity. If he is correct, she bestows him with a kiss; if he is wrong, he must atone for his error with a gift. His gift could be a poem, a flower, a trinket—if he is generous—anything.”

“I say!” Wyatt beamed. “Blind man’s buff with a naughty French twist!”

The king looked fascinated. “If a gentleman is blindfolded, how will he catch the ladies?”

“Oh, we make bird sounds to lure him.” Renée offered imitations of bird communication.

Michael’s eyes were riveted on her mouth. The only thing keeping him from pouncing on it was his vow to be the one to kiss the rosebud lips at the end of the game. His body stiffened as he imagined her nipples in the shape of those lips, but he dared not stretch his imagination toward the petals between her thighs for fear he might embarrass himself.

“Do you get caught often, Lady Renée?” asked Wyatt.

Michael did not like the interest he perceived in the man’s eyes.

“I always get caught!” Renée laughed. “And have plenty of gifts to show for it.”

King Henry laughed. “Ladies, dare you venture into the greenwood with rascally fellows?” At the excited assents, he stood up. “What shall we use for blindfolds?” Before he completed the sentence, the nymphs were plucking off mufflers, scarves, tuckers, and stoles and dropping them in a colorful heap at his feet, loot to the conqueror. “Ladies, disperse!”

“All hid, all hid!” Wyatt clucked, as if herding chickens.

Giggling, chirping, and tweeting, the queen’s maids of honor and youthful ladies-in-waiting scattered in all directions, dissolving into the shrubbery, taking cover behind bushes and trees.

Michael was not about to miss this for the world. He snatched a diaphanous cerulean scarf, redolent of ambergris and lavender, and took to the trees.

Renée clasped Mary’s hand and ran into the wood, then went back and whisked Anne with them. She was not letting this woman out of her sight. A medley of silly twittering and hysterical giggles arose from the surrounding greenery. All the flower bushes were animated with birdsong.

“God’s teeth, you have conjured a menagerie, Wyatt.”

“That’s my Charles,” Mary whispered excitedly, and chirped in response.

“A dovecot,” said the bearded fellow, Lord Stanley.

“Hen coop.”

“Mews.”

“A female privy council!”

“God protect us!” cried Sir Francis Bryan, eliciting masculine chuckles from the thicket.

“An apiary,” said Michael Devereaux. “With three bees in the nearest skep, methinks.”

“Glad will this honey-stalk be should you let me to your honeycomb, bee,” berhymed Wyatt.

“And pump you full of honey-seeds,” finished Compton.

“Pray, do not leave us, Your Grace,” Wyatt pleaded with Suffolk when the duke drifted away from their group, “for I might grope Stanley by accident, and then what will become of me?”

“A holed honey-bag, for I will run you through, Wyatt. I swear I will,” Stanley replied.

“Heartless rascal,” Wyatt protested in a mock prissy tone.

Male laughter boomed. Anne squeaked at Michael. Mary darted to another tree, closer to her lord, and chirped sweetly. Suffolk stumbled toward her, his arms outstretched. Mary took a step back, softening her song. Observing them, Renée recognized their play for the courting ritual it was: she flirted, he responded, she retreated, he pursued, listening for hints. He caught her. She melted in his arms. “My canary,” Charles murmured before he kissed his wife, still blindfolded.

Suddenly embarrassed for spying on them, Renée turned away, leaning back against a tree. She had had to scheme and apply herself so hard to get Raphael to notice her, really notice her, as a woman, and he had been so timid. She assumed it was her elevated station that daunted him, turning him into a skittish responder, never the aggressor. And yet here was Charles Brandon, grabbing and pawing his wife—Renée’s English counterpart—with all the passion and mastery of a man in love. But then Suffolk was a soldier, whereas Raphael was an artist. His was not the type to conquer and plunder. He was reflective, gentle, and absentminded. He needed her to take care of him. Oh, how she wished she had not seen Mary with her ardent husband.

She opened her eyes to find Michael Devereaux lurking nearby. Jesu! He had her cerulean scarf tied around his head, a vivid contrast to his golden mane. As if he felt her eyes upon him, he advanced in her direction. Did he hear the rustle of skirts and expected her to tweet at him? Never! Let him find Anne and then let them find a secluded corner wherein to amuse themselves.

She spotted King Henry turning about helplessly as a chorus of squeaking females beckoned him from behind trees and bushes, gamboling around him, bubbling with laughter. He resembled a splendid sightless lion being baited by a flock of noisome ducks masquerading as butterflies, or he could be Aengus, Renée mused, the Celtic god of love, pestered by the four birds flying about his head, symbolizing kisses. Guffawing and calling to them, he was having a hard time deciding which he should seize upon. Predictably, Mistress Blount stumbled into his arms.

“Oh-hoa, my little nightingale!” exclaimed Lord Stanley as his muscular arms locked around a lanky young woman with light blond hair.

“You may never guess my name, sir, for we are not acquainted.” The woman smiled at his half-covered face with what Renée recognized as budding interest.

“By all means, introduce yourself!” he suggested jovially, making the woman laugh.

“That is my sister you are fondling, sir!” a blindfolded Sir Walter Devereaux fumed hard by.

“I show your sister naught but courtesy, sir. Do not doubt it!” replied Stanley.

“Show her aught else, and you’ll be wedded at sword point by suppertime,” Wyatt gibed.

“There’s my husband,” Anne whispered dolefully, indicating the man wandering aimlessly, companionless, calling his wife’s name insistently, for none of the “birds” would flirt with him. He looked awkward, lofty, and ridiculous. “He will expect me to sing to him.”

“I thought you wanted to be caught by the Viking,” Renée whispered back. She had already made up her mind to let Wyatt catch her, for he was harmless. She planned to wrest a witty poem from him. Annoyingly, the hulking hindrance, Michael Devereaux, was guarding the lane to her hideout like a rockfall or rather a tenacious cat stalking a songbird. Was he hunting for Anne?

“I cannot, not in the common gaze. But…might I beg a favor? Will you give him a message from me?”

Renée’s ears prickled. “What is the message?”

“Tell him I would see him again.” Without warning, Anne nudged Renée into the lane, into the fair giant’s path, and dashed to her husband.

Michael waited for Renée’s friends to flounce off or be caught before he made his move. Wyatt and the peacock were prowling after her. Hence, he planted himself between them and her. Not a moment passed when he was unaware of her whereabouts. While her fragrant scarf blindfolded his eyes silkily, his senses followed her bodily presence like a mariner navigating by the pole star, as he had stalked the hart in the thicket. He listened to her hushed conversation with Anne and as soon as she stepped into the lane he seized her wrist.

“I have you fast now.” Michael smiled, pulling her closer. He slid his hands around her slim waist, embracing her sylphid body to his. She felt wonderful in his arms, lithe and delectable. He wanted to carry her to a magical wood, lay her on a bed of moss, peel off her clothing, feast his eyes on her beauty, scatter kisses on her quivering maidenly flesh, and make her mad with desire for him. A privilege he would never have. But he would have a kiss. “Will you not greet me that I may hear your voice and guess your name?”

“Twit.” She felt rigid, the light musk of natural perspiration spicing the costly perfume she wore. Around them, birds in brocades and silks chatted with and giggled at their captors, whether because they wanted to be recognized and kissed or could not contain their exuberance.

“Sing a whole song for me, little wrenne, that I may hazard a guess.” As Michael waited for a response, he felt her stiffening, tilting back, discouraging further contact. She did not want him to kiss her. Stung, he let go. He untied her scarf from his eyes and was struck dumb seeing how beautiful she was up close in the white light of day. Her face was alabaster smooth, delicate as a white orchid; her dark-lashed eyes were stunning amethysts. He met them squarely, unsmiling. “Once again you have outwitted me, madame.”

Renée blinked up at him. “Why did you not try to guess my name?” she asked softly.

“I knew your name.”

Annoyance erased any hint of vulnerability or shyness. Her gemlike eyes flared, becoming brilliantly hard in intensity. “You knew me but would not demand your reward?”

He was flummoxed. Did she want him to kiss her? “Name your pleasure.”

She snatched her scarf from his fingers, hissing, “Go and be hanged!”