A Love Most Dangerous (25 page)

'I suppose you realise that you are not to use the
late Queen's apartments,' he said.

'Of course not,' I answered. 'I never imagined I
would. I have my own chamber.'

He smiled. 'Not any longer. As King's favourite you
shall have a new chamber closer to the King. Come, let me take you there.'

I was bemused at this information. I had my chamber
since first I came to court. It was tiny but it had been the first room I could
call my own and I loved it.

My mind was in a whirl as I followed the Groom out
into the corridor I had first used to visit the King. But instead of turning
left into the long Gallery we continued straight on towards the new apartments
which had only recently been built. We passed the King's private stairs to the
garden and then turned left once again. We stopped a little way along this
corridor. Frost pushed open a door and gestured for me to enter.

I gasped with delight. The chamber was six times
larger than my own bedroom and had two windows looking east towards rolling
country-side. The larger window was a half bow. I noticed that next to it was a
second door.

'That leads to the King's new bed-chamber,' Frost said
in a matter-of-fact tone. 'He has not moved into it yet but has plans to.'

I nodded and then frowned. Upon a table near the
window were my poetry books, my recorder and all my little knick-knacks and
jewellery.

'Everything has been brought from your old room,'
Frost explained. 'Your personal things, your gowns, everything.' He gave a cool
smile. 'This is your chamber now, Alice. While you remain the King's favourite
it is your chamber.'

He turned on his heel and left me alone.

I flung myself on the huge bed and squealed with
delight.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The Howard Family

A harsh east wind made the windows of Kenninghall Place rattle mournfully. It fitted the mood of its owner. Thomas Howard, third Duke of
Norfolk and Earl Marshal of England, was a worried man.

He still counted himself a friend of King Henry and
knew well that the restoration of the family's fortune was due to his favour.
The Howard family understood better than most how fragile is even a Duke's hold
upon titles and power.

His grand-father, the first Duke, had been a loyal
friend to Richard III. It had proved a costly association. He had paid with his
life at the Battle of Bosworth and the family had paid with their fortune,
their honours and much of their wealth. His son, Norfolk's father, managed to
escape execution but spent four years imprisoned in the Tower. Henry VII sat
uneasy on his throne and had a dread of over-powerful lords. He had finally
allowed the prisoner his freedom but refused adamantly to reinstate the dukedom

Thomas glanced up at the portrait of his father above
the fireplace. He had never been an easy man and the portrait captured this
exactly. Square face, sharp nose and suspicious eyes.

'I can't say I loved him,' Norfolk said, 'but we owe
everything to him.'

His mistress Bess glanced up from her embroidery. 'If
you say so, Thomas.' She had heard this many times before.

'He spent his life proving his loyalty to the Tudors,'
Norfolk continued. 'Yet that vile usurper Henry Tudor would not restore him to
the Dukedom.'

'Your father had been on the opposing side to the old
king,' Bess said. 'You always say that Henry was not a man to forgive and
forget his enemies.'

Norfolk
ignored his mistress
and thought back to the dreary days of the previous reign. No matter how much
was done for that spider of a king it was never enough. Never enough to regain
the Howards' rightful place in the scheme of things.

He had breathed a sigh of relief when the old king
died and young Henry became king. Where his father had been all brooding
darkness the young man was like the sun. It was as if the trammels of the
kingdom had been suddenly cut away. But the Howards' hopes for immediate
advancement had been dashed. Just as his father had done, so the new King Henry
turned his face against them. Until that wonderful day when the Scots invaded.
Then Henry had swallowed his pride and came cap in hand to ask the Howards to
lead an army north to do battle.

'Thank goodness for the Scottish invasion,' Norfolk murmured, more to himself than to Bess.

He thought back to that glorious victory, a victory
due to his father and, even more, to his own military skills and courage. The
King had finally restored the Dukedom to the Howards. Nevertheless, he made it
very clear that the restoration was for honours earned and would be snatched
back with equal speed should the family again incur royal displeasure.

Norfolk
raised a glass to his
father and drained it swiftly. At last I understand you better, he thought. You
spent a lifetime walking a tightrope between the pillars of honour and
disgrace. Now it seems that I walk on that same path.

Bess put down her embroidery.

'Surely there's no need to worry, Thomas. The King
loved your gift of the lions. And he still has need of you. For your military
skills and your experience.'

Norfolk
scowled. 'He had no
need of military men. Not when he has a brute like Cromwell at his beck and
call.'

Bess sighed. 'You concern yourself too much with
Thomas Cromwell.'

'Only because he concerns himself too much with me.
Indeed, with everything that transpires in the Kingdom.'

'He's a commoner, a servant.'

'So was Wolsey. And look what power he wielded.'

Bess sighed. She knew better than to continue such a
conversation when he was in this mood.

Norfolk
prowled about the
chamber, his eyes blazing. She could almost see his mind working, weighing up
chance and risk, opportunity and disaster.

A servant appeared in the chamber and bowed. 'The Earl
and Countess of Surrey,' he announced.

Bess breathed a sigh of relief. Frances could usually shake her father-in-law out of any ill-humour.

The Earl entered the chamber and gave a broad smile. 

'Good day, father,' he said.

'Is it?' Norfolk answered. 'What makes it so, pray?'

Surrey
glanced at his wife and
then at Bess. 'Seeing you father,' he said, in an earnest tone. 'It is always a
joy to see you.'

'Don't lie,' Norfolk said. 'You only call it a joy
when you want something from me.'

Frances
took the Duke's hand in
hers and smiled into his face.

'You are like a bear today,' she said. 'Who has been
baiting you?'

'The usual,' Bess said. 'Thomas Cromwell.'

His son threw his arm in the air in a gesture of
frustration. 'Cromwell, of course.'

His father turned on him in a fury. 'You may mock. But
you won't when Cromwell signs your death-warrant.'

'Cromwell is a gutter-snipe,' Surrey said. 'Why should I fear him? Or you?'

Norfolk
gave a vulpine smile.
'I wonder did you mean that ambiguity, dear son?'

'I am a poet, father, of course I did.'

The two men stared at each other, bristling, and then
the Duke laughed aloud and embraced him.

'We're very different, Henry,' he said. 'But we're
hewn from the same rock. You have the courage to take a risk.'

'Too much,' said Frances. She crossed the room and
kissed Bess.

Bess frowned. 'Why? What has Henry done now?'

Frances
sat beside her and
glanced up at her husband.

'Carousing with low fellows,' she said. 'And singing
bawdy songs about Thomas Cranmer.'

Bess held her hand to her mouth with shock. But the
look of surprise on Norfolk's face almost immediately turned to one of
amusement.

'Did you indeed, Henry,' he said. He tried to hide his
glee. 'That was foolish of you, and probably unkind. But a little levity does
not go amiss.'

'Levity?' Frances said. 'He called Philippa Cranmer a
fishwife.'

Norfolk
shrugged. 'She can
hardly be termed a wife. It is not right for an Archbishop of Canterbury to
take a wife.'

'Would you rather he took a mistress?' said Bess.

Norfolk
frowned. 'It is not
seemly for a man of God to take any woman to his bed, wife, mistress or, as my
son so charmingly puts it, fishwife.'

'Hypocrisy, sir,' Bess said. 'When you have bedded me
this past ten years and put your legal wife aside to do it.'

'That's different,' he replied, 'and you know it.'

Bess shrugged and shook her head as if at a wayward
child.

'Maybe I shall put you aside,' he continued, 'and take
Elizabeth back.'

'I pray you don't,' Surrey said. 'I couldn't stand the
uproar.' He poured a glass of wine for himself and another for his father who
drank it down in one gulp.

'And what about the uproar caused by you singing bawdy
songs about the Archbishop?' Norfolk asked sharply.

Surrey
shrugged. 'The
magistrate was amenable to reason and a purse of silver. There will be no
uproar. No news of it shall carry to the King.'

'If it does, I shall disown you,' Norfolk said. 'I have troubles enough of my own.'

Frances
got up and took him by
the arm. 'You said you were being vexed by Thomas Cromwell,' she said in a
soothing tone. 'What is the cause?'

Norfolk
poured himself another
glass of wine.

'Apart from the fact that I must seek his approval for
bringing my own daughter into the presence of the King?' he cried. 'To sue for
the lands and titles which should be hers by right as widow of the King's own
son?'

'You had to ask Cromwell's permission?' asked Frances in surprise.

Norfolk
nodded. 'That I should
have to ask the permission of a common servant.' He glanced up at the portrait
of his father who now seemed to wear a sneer of mockery. He shook his head
angrily. 'And to rub salt into the wound the knave gave me ambiguous answer.'

'Of course he did,' Surrey answered. 'He knows that
the King wants to keep FitzRoy's money for himself and not give it into Howard
hands.'

'There is more,' said Norfolk. 'Cromwell is seeking
for a new wife for the King. Already, with the grass on Jane Seymour's grave
not yet grown.'

'A king must have a queen,' Frances said.

'But Cromwell is determined that the next queen be a
Protestant one. And he, the lewd guttersnipe, wants to be the one to select
her.'

'Oh father,' Surrey said, 'that is your job, surely?'
He poured himself another glass of wine. 'After all, you chose so well with
cousin Boleyn.'

'Hush, Henry,' Frances said. 'Show respect to your
father.'

'And Anne would still be queen,' thundered Norfolk, 'and the Howard influence still higher if it had not been for Cromwell's determination to
dispense with her.'

Surrey
sipped at his wine and
his eyes glittered with amusement. 'Alas, it is only in poetry that love proves
more powerful than gold.'

'You're not suggesting that the King executed Anne for
gold?' Frances said in horror.

Surrey
shrugged. 'She offered
Henry her body and her shrewish mind. Cromwell offered him a mountain of gold
from the Abbeys. A vast treasure which Anne was determined should go to
charities and schools.'

'And where did Cromwell wish it to go?' Frances asked.

'Where the King wished it. Into the Royal coffers.'

'And with a portion of it going to line Cromwell's
nest,' said Norfolk. 'The peasant.'

A silence fell upon the chamber while each considered
what had been said. Until this moment the Howards had held these dark
suspicions privately and secretly, not shared even with other members of the
family. Now that they were out in the open it felt a relief; almost like a
declaration of war which had ended months of weary stalemate and diplomacy.

'So this is why father is so angry, you see,' Surrey explained to his wife. 'When my dear cousin Anne's head rolled from the block, father's star
was eclipsed by Cromwell's. If Cromwell can arrange a new marriage he fears it
will be quite extinguished.'

'I do not fear only for myself,' Norfolk said. 'I fear for the whole family. And that includes you, my dear son. And I fear for Mother Church.'

He began to pace up and down the room, muttering aloud
the thoughts which had been turning and churning in his head for weeks. 'If
Cromwell is able to secure a foreign bride for the King, a protestant bride,
his power will be unbridled. Every noble family in the land will cower beneath
his shadow. And then he will be swift to do his master's bidding. He will dismantle
the cathedrals and churches and pour it into the open maw of the King. And
after, when Henry has frittered away even that vast wealth on vainglory and
gaudy palaces, where then will the snake Cromwell go to find more wealth to
satisfy the King's insatiable demands?'