She approaches, but as she does so becomes smaller and smaller. I draw back, confused.
She is not my princess but my own little girl.
“Mary . . .” I murmur when I find my voice, torn from my throat in a painful rasp.
Elizabeth exchanges a look with my stepmother.
“Who is he asking after?” the Dowager Duchess asks.
Elizabeth is silent a long moment, then offers a shrug. “I haven't the foggiest.”
I collapse against the bed. It is no use. Someone is drawing the blankets up over my shoulders. I want to sleep; why won't they just let me sleep? My eyelids are so heavy. . . .
“Stay awake, Thomas,” Elizabeth is urging, patting my cheeks again and again.
I force my eyes open and fix my gaze on her face. “Elizabeth,” I mutter. “Steadfast Elizabeth.”
As the minutes turn into hours, I fight. The poison pours out of my body in the form of the sickening sweat, and the stench of death fills the room. But I will beat death. I will show God that this Howard will choose when to die.
When I reach the twenty-four-hour point in the illness's course, it is decided that I will indeed live.
Strength begins to flow back into me, surging through my limbs like wine. I can move without being gripped by pain. My stomach, churning and empty, is still protesting the thought of food, but I force broth down my throat to keep up my strength.
My stepmother, exercising her rights as mistress of the household, makes certain I am kept abed for a week.
While recovering, I receive a most unusual gift.
“From Her Grace at Waltham,” says Elizabeth as she places the wriggling blanket in my arms.
“Why on earth would the queen send me a present?” I demand.
My wife shrugs. “God knows it isn't because of your loyalty to her cause,” she says.
“I see you've returned from doting wife to disagreeable self in no time,” I observe, and unwrap the blanket to reveal a greyhound pup with a gold collar studded with emeralds, sapphires, and rubies.
Its resemblance to my favorite childhood dog, Rain, the dog that my grandfather slew in a rage, causes my throat to constrict with tears. My lip quivers. I swallow hard. The pup climbs up my chest, wagging its tail, and I find myself stroking its soft scruff and cooing at it like an idiot.
“It comes with this dispatch,” Elizabeth tells me as she hands me an unopened letter bearing the queen's seal.
To His Grace, the good lord Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk,
My good lord, it has come to our attention that you have taken ill with this dread plague that smites England like the hand of God. Upon learning of your recovery we fell to our knees, giving thanks to God. You are most fortunate to have your beloved wife at your side.
Please accept this token of our esteem and appreciation for all of your services over the years past. We know you to be a good Catholic man, a faithful servant who adheres to tradition. We put our trust in your continued services and constancy and look forward to seeing you at court upon our return.
God bless and keep you,
Catherine R.
“Oh, for God's sake,” I mutter, tossing the letter aside and turning my head away before Elizabeth can note the tears I am blinking back.
“Good Catholic . . . faithful servant . . . constant,” Elizabeth is saying, her voice bitter with sarcasm. “Either Her Grace remains willfully ignorant of your many charms or she has a startling command of sarcasm that I was not aware of. In that case she should be congratulated.”
“Don't you have somewhere to go?” I ask her.
Elizabeth smiles; it is as hard as her tone. “But I am your devoted wife, here to tend your every need. Until the court returns, I will remain by your side.”
I shake my head. The pup is wriggling about so much that I hand him to her. She softens once the creature is in her arms, smiling upon it as though it is a baby.
“It is sweet of her, Thomas,” she says. “She's always thought so highly of you. Even when I was a little girl . . . I remember looking at you once when you were jousting and she asked me to pray for you. She was always thinking of you, wishing you the best.”
I bite my lip, touched by my wife's reverie. Trying to keep the conversation from swaying to the queen, I ask, “And what were you thinking the day you saw me at the joust?”
Elizabeth strokes the pup's silky ears. Her eyes mist over. “I-I was thinking of how handsome you were, much more so than the young lads the other maidens were swooning over.” She raises her head, meeting my eyes. Tears course down her cheeks as she reaches out to cover my hand with hers. “How did we ever get from there to here?”
I am silent. I do not know how to answer her question, how to explain to her that what has happened was meant to happen. How to explain that I should go mad if I could not keep Bess as a counterweight to Elizabeth and a distraction from something so disturbing that I dare not allow myself to think of it.
I clear my throat, squeezing her hand. “I suppose I should name this little thing. What do you think of Storm?”
“It is a good name,” my wife says in quiet tones. “Living in this storm of the court in these uncertain times . . .” She lowers her eyes.
“It's a strong name,” I say. “Take him to the nursery. The nieces and nephews should enjoy a turn with him. There's a sweet little girl there just out of swaddling bandsâwhat did my brother Edmund name her? Catherine. How could I forget? Yes, I think they call her Kitty. Show the pup to Kitty; she'll love it.”
Were we at home I would have ordered the dog to be taken to our nursery but as it is, it may as well receive attention from the children of Norfolk House.
Elizabeth quits the room, her expression soft and wistful, causing my heart to lurch in unexpected pain. There is nothing to be done. It is best not to think on her overmuch.
When she has departed, I take up the queen's dispatch once more, rereading it, the words
faithful servant
and
constancy
standing out like vicious taunts, racking my conscience and making me wonder how well King Henry has estimated the strength and stubbornness of his wife and adversary, Queen Catherine of Aragon.
With the sweating sickness on the decline, the court returns to London and in October the papal legate Cardinal Campeggio arrives. Anne and the king are more in love than ever, which, while it makes me sick, favors the family with elevations that otherwise would not be achieved. Meantime I have taken to arranging marriages for my children. Thomas is betrothed to my ward, Elizabeth Marney (that was quite the ordeal; I had to solicit her wardship at her father's deathbed, but the end result was worth the pains. The child will bring a great deal of wealth to the family). It is a good match and, from the look of the little girl, should warrant many grandchildren. As for my daughter Cathy, now comely at the age of fifteen, I have found for her a groom in the Earl of Derby, Edward Stanley.
She will be a good wife; she always had the makings of a great lady. Her future will be assured and as a countess she will be secured a place at court. Hopefully, she will soon wait upon her own cousin. I scrunch up my shoulders at the thought. Imagine!
With their futures in order, there is but to think of Henry and Mary.
“The solution for our Henry is simple,” says my niece Anne, flashing her black eyes at me as I visit her one evening at Durham House. We are in the parlor playing dice. “He should wed the Princess Mary. God knows all her other betrothals have fallen through. The Spanish brat is cursed.”
My heart lurches at the thought. “I'm not the idiot Buckingham was,” I tell her in harsh tones. “I will not be accused of trying to place myself too close to the throne. I like my head where it is, thank you very much. Best not mention that again.”
Anne offers her edgy laugh in response. “Oh, but it is a travesty! The Pope told His Majesty that rather than grant an annulment of his marriage, he would grant a special dispensation allowing Princess Mary to wed Fitzroy! Can you believe that? He would rather a
sister
and
brother
marry than allow the king's desired annulment!” She shakes her head. “Sheer madness.” She cocks her head, surveying me with a slight smile. “Besides, I have another solution for Fitzroy,” she adds in her throaty voice.
I lean in toward her, taken in by the conspiratorial tone.
She covers my hand with hers. I note the little nub of a sixth finger on it and withdraw mine. She grimaces at the empty spot, then covers the hand with her sleeve.
“One of your girls,” she says. “Catherine or the little one, what's her name?”
“Mary,” I say, my heart catching in my throat at the thought of the ethereal child. “Her name is Mary.”
“Whoever,” Anne says, waving a hand as though the girls were interchangeable. “No one could accuse you of putting yourself too close to the throne then.”
“An intriguing thought,” I say. “But Catherine is spoken for. It would have to be Mary.”
“Mary, then,” Anne says in decisive tones. “I shall bring it to His Majesty's attention.”
“Be subtle, Anne,” I caution her.
“I know how to handle him, Uncle Thomas,” she assures me. “You've taught me well.”
With that she rolls the dice. “Ha!” she cries. “I win! See? I win!”
I laugh.
The gaze she fixes on me is cold and hard. “I always win, Uncle Thomas. Remember that.”
Something in the certainty of her tone causes me to shudder.
She is an unnerving creature, this Anne Boleyn.
At Christmas, much to Anne's chagrin, the queen presides over all the festivities alongside her husband. Anne makes merry in her apartments, entertaining courtiers who trade piety for vibrancy. She is sought out for favors more than anyone save His Majesty, including Queen Catherine and the hated Wolsey. His decline in favor causes my heart to expand with joy as I wonder what the pompous old fool thinks of the Howards now.
Elizabeth keeps company with Her Grace and I with the king, who puts on lavish entertainments for the papal legate. But despite whatever means of avoidance I employ, I am paired off with the queen during the dancing that follows one of the banquets. The sweet face regarding me is lined with such open misery and anguish, I am forced to avert my eyes.
“You are quite recovered, Your Grace?” she asks me in the Spanish accent I always found disarming.
I nod. “Many thanks for the fine hound,” I tell her. “Though I can hardly claim him as mine anymore. He is smitten with my baby niece.”
“Your nieces have that affect, it seems,” the queen says in wry tones.
I say nothing. The hand that holds the queen's is rigid. My body is tense and achy. My dancing days are over and I want nothing more than to end this farce and go to bed.
The queen's thumb strokes mine a moment and my heart lurches as my eyes seek out hers. The blue gaze is soft with unshed tears.
“My champion,” she says with a heavy sigh. “Many years ago you saved my husband's kingdom from the Scots.” Her smile reveals a trace of triumph. “And years before that, you rode for my honor in the lists. Would you ride for me again, Your Grace, or do you carry another's banner?”
I force my gaze to hold hers. “I carry the banner my king commands,” I tell her.
Her face falls. She seems to age ten years in that moment. “You are a good subject, Your Grace, but you are also His Majesty's friend. As a friend, would your higher obligation to God ever compel you to interfere in a matter of conscience?”
I am growing impatient with the leading nature of her questions and the desperation creeping into her tone. I draw in a deep breath, expelling it slowly. “The king's tender conscience serves as my moral compass,” I say in firm tones. “I adhere to his will, which is tantamount to God's on earth.”
“Despite whatever divinity courses through the royal veins, he is still a man and influenced by other men, men whose ambitions are far from holy,” the queen says. “As his faithful friend, you would not try to guide him if you saw he was headed down a path that could jeopardize his soul?”
What is it with these women and the soul? I want to scream. I doubt my Bess would think twice about such utter nonsense. How I miss her!
“I am not a man of the cloth,” I tell her. “Matters of the soul are best left to the theologians. I do not attempt to guide His Majesty; I trust and defer to his judgment.”
The queen's lip quivers. My heart stirs.
“Then I am alone,” she says, almost to herself. “All alone in a foreign land.”
“Your Graceâ” I begin but am cut short by my own inability to reassure her.