The Boleyn Reckoning (29 page)

“What is it you fear, Your Highness?” Walsingham asked, for she had not decided yet what to do with that letter. The intelligencer had brought it to her and Burghley, leaving the decision in their hands. But Burghley would do what she directed. The choice was Elizabeth’s.

She would not name her most foolish fears, the ones that slipped into her mind in darkest night, whispering that Minuette and Dominic’s abandonment had taken with them William’s reason. Her brother hardly seemed to see her these days, at least not as anything more than another hectoring voice that bothered him beyond reason. He was angry with her, naturally, for helping Minuette slip away with Dominic. But it wasn’t William’s anger that she feared. It was his detachment, as though Elizabeth and Mary and Norfolk and the Catholics and even Europe itself were nothing more than obstacles in his way. To what lengths would he go to overrun those obstacles? And how deeply would England pay?

“We must be prepared for anything,” she answered finally. “England cannot be allowed to be riven by the flaws of any one man, no matter who that man may be. I will see Mary myself, and then decide.”

It said a great deal about the current state of William’s government that his own chancellor nodded gravely at her near-treasonous words.

Mary Tudor faced the long winter of her imprisonment in the Tower with more than equanimity, sustained by righteousness. She spent hours each day on her knees in prayer and her greatest regret was not the loss of her freedom of movement, not the loss of luxurious surroundings or sufficient retainers or lavish meals: it was the
denial of a confessor. But even that was made bearable by the thought of the Boleyn siblings gone from the earth, her mother’s tormentors now in Hell, as well as the knowledge that the Duke of Norfolk was rallying true Catholics to her cause.

I waited, Mother. I endured. I have been patient and faithful. Now is the moment for God to strike. I am ready
.

So it was that when Elizabeth deigned to visit the Tower as the year drew to a bitter close, Mary greeted her with composure and the surety of her position. “Sister,” she offered fairly.

Elizabeth was not so gracious. “You’ve been playing dangerous games, Mary,” she said softly, the two of them alone in the chill stone-walled chamber. “I cannot decide if you do not see the danger, or if you see it and do not care.”

“How can you imagine me ignorant?” Mary retorted ironically. “I have been put in Bloody Tower, have I not? Meant as a threat, no doubt. Or perhaps they imagine me susceptible to ghosts, and hope the spectres of Edward IV’s poor murdered boys will drive me mad. But I live by God’s light, and do not fear the darkness. Not when I have done nothing against God’s law or my own conscience.”

“The murder of an unarmed man is not a mortal sin?”

Mary narrowed her eyes at Elizabeth’s impudence. She had tried to love her sister all these years, and retained a certain stubborn affection against all logic. Perhaps only because Elizabeth had their father stamped firmly in her features and bearing. Henry VIII’s hair had dulled over time, but Mary could remember when it had shone with the same red-gold fire as Elizabeth’s. The way her younger sister spoke and argued and even teased … those were all legacies from their shared father.

Her affection ran side by side with envy—which
was
a sin. But how could she not envy the young princess who had stolen her title and her youth and all the opportunities for marriage and children
that belonged, by right, to her? And Elizabeth treated them so lightly, with her arrogant cloth-of-silver gown and fur-lined cloak of finest wool and an astonishing vanity of jewelry about her person.

Elizabeth did not deserve her gifts.

With an impatient shake of her head, clearly ignoring whatever Mary might be thinking, Elizabeth continued, “What would you say if I told you that I have in my possession certain letters of yours meant for Lord Norfolk? Letters that near enough prove the two of you were in collusion over Lord Rochford’s murder, and which encourage the duke to approach Spain for further funds in arming his rebels? Letters that prove you are actively working to destroy the king?”

Mary blinked. Elizabeth was guessing; she must be. Those letters had been entrusted to the most devout Catholics. “I would say you are bluffing.”

“Then you would be utterly, disastrously wrong. You are too trusting, Mary. Because your faith is stubborn enough to overcome all earthly temptations, you expect the same of others. But most men are more venal. They can be bought—and I mean that literally. Your courier has been in my agent’s employ for months. Every letter that has passed between you and Lord Norfolk has been intercepted and read first by my men. And now I must decide what to do about it.”

“If you’ve come to beg me to recant—”

“I don’t beg, sister. You know that. I was willing to let you be, even after your triumph at my uncle’s death. But I will not allow you to move against William. It is over, Mary. Your plotting is finished. When the spring comes, the king’s armies will sweep north and destroy the rebels. And you will never be free again.”

“As if I have ever been free!” Mary fought to control her tongue, but years of resentment finally burst forth against this young, beautiful,
bastard sister. “I have been imprisoned in a land of heretics and liars since the moment your mother bewitched my father. My life has been a prison of mockery and pretense, ever having to guard my tongue against those who bowed to the king’s will over God’s will. I have been submissive and humble as long as my soul can stand. No more. Your mother was nothing but a king’s mistress, and neither you nor your brother have any right before Heaven to his throne. I have given William every chance to rule. I would gladly go to my grave honouring him as an earthly king if only he would honour God. But I cannot let the faithful fall and do nothing. If William will not guard the truth, then I must.”

Elizabeth rose, not a trace of womanly pity in her expression. “Your letters will be handed over to the privy council. What happens next will be up to them.”

“As if I care for the councils of men,” Mary retorted dismissively. “I would rather die a martyr than live a hypocrite.”

“I will do everything in my power to ensure you don’t die.”

“Don’t do me any favours,” Mary spat.

Raising one smooth, cool eyebrow, Elizabeth said, “I’m not doing it for you.”

F
ROM THE MOMENT
Dominic reached Wynfield Mote, he was beset with doubts about their choice of refuge. All his strength lay at Tiverton, and he knew the concerns of Minuette’s health had been little more than a quickly grasped excuse to not have to decide immediately whether he would fight. But all he had done was delay the matter. As far as the Catholics were concerned, he was the king’s enemy now, and that meant he was in their camp. Norfolk kept up a constant stream of letters and messengers through the autumn. The pressure eased with the winter weather, but Dominic knew Norfolk had not abandoned hope of securing Dominic and Tiverton for his spring rebellion.

Cut off from his former friends, Dominic took what news he could from wherever it came. So it was through Norfolk that he learned the details of the rescue attempt for the Lady Mary on the day he and Minuette had fled London. William’s forces had cut off the rebels from their reinforcements and arrested thirteen men. Trials and executions had followed, with a swift brutality that sickened Dominic. He found himself offering silent counsel to William.
Cruelty ensures that open rebellion comes sooner—and harder. Norfolk is a formidable enemy, Will, and you’re pushing men into his camp with every public vivisection
.

That was the worst of it—to feel every loyalty pulling him to William and yet know himself a traitor. Not even sleep brought forgetfulness, for he found himself dreaming of his father’s shadowy end in the Tower. He would wake to his father’s plea, written to Henry VIII, echoing in his head:
Whither have I fallen? What have I done?

Minuette appeared as locked in her own mind as Dominic was in his, and it seemed their marital intimacy would pay the price. He needed her too badly at first to keep away entirely, but each encounter left him increasingly restless as it was only his body that was sated. After one encounter in early November, Dominic left her bed to sleep in the room he had used before their marriage. He did not come near her again, for he could not bear the thought of using his wife as he might have any convenient woman who could provide temporary oblivion.

It wasn’t as though they argued. He spoke to her much as he always had, and she replied with equal civility. But they lied fluently to each other, if only by avoiding any topic of importance. William was never mentioned, nor even Elizabeth. They did not speak of court or the Catholics or the trials or the continued imprisonment of Lady Mary. Anyone listening would have thought them a quiet young country couple, content to live among farmers and concerned with nothing more than winter weather.

As a dreary Christmas passed and 1557 dawned, letters from Norfolk came more frequently despite the weather, pressing Dominic to declare for the rebels, using everything from flattery to blunt warning. And still Dominic delayed, watching the shifts of political winds as a farmer watches the sky, waiting for the storm to break.

In the middle of February he and Minuette spent an hour one night with her tenants and their families in the medieval hall at Wynfield. The company was a change from their usual solitude,
and Minuette was in her element, moving among her people with a kind word for each of them and a thorough knowledge of their troubles and small illnesses. She played blindman’s buff with the children, and Dominic overheard Asherton, her steward, say to Harrington, “That is a lady, and no mistake.”

And so she was, a lady not dependent on position or wardrobe or jewels. She had dressed plainly since their flight from London; her gown tonight was a lightweight charcoal wool with unlined sleeves. Her hair was twisted neatly beneath a linen veil, as became a married woman not at court, and her only adornment was the pearl and sapphire necklace that Dominic had given her a lifetime ago.

It made his heart ache to see how others called forth her joy when it seemed all he had brought her this last year was misery. She swayed to the music of a single violin, laughing with the children as their parents danced. One little girl, just old enough to walk, clung to her skirts until Minuette swung her up and twirled with her a few times. And then the child laid her head against Minuette’s shoulder and Minuette rested her own head against the child’s and the flickering light cast by the fire was enough for Dominic to see the jewel-like tears that hovered on his wife’s eyelashes. And only then did he remember.

February—when their own child should have been born.

The shock of it went through him like a blow shattering glass and Dominic had to swallow against tears of his own. They had never spoken of all they had lost and he knew right then that their silence had been a mistake. How were they meant to be husband and wife when they shared nothing more than house space?

When Minuette returned the sleeping girl to her mother, Dominic came up behind her and caught her hand, twining his fingers tightly with hers. She gave him one brief, startled look, then softened into place beside him. Together they bid farewell to
her families, and when they were alone, they did not speak, but their silence this time was not fraught with tension or choked-back words.

It was Minuette who finally broke the silence, in the hushed darkness of the hall after Carrie had tactfully swept the housekeeper and maids away. “There are many things I regret, Dominic—but being your wife will never be one of them. Just because we made mistakes, it doesn’t follow that everything is tainted.”

He pulled her to him and kissed her, just once. Then he let go, afraid of breaking the fragile bridge they had built this night.

But Minuette had ever been the braver one. She pulled him back, her hands tight on his black doublet, and kissed him with a thoroughness of intent that made him shudder in response. Thank heaven for Carrie’s discretion, because they never made it out of the hall. The table was hard, but both of them were too fierce and frantic to care about niceties like mattresses. He might have worried about hurting her as he plucked her veil loose and tugged at the far too many laces that kept him from her—but Minuette tore impatiently at his own clothing until she could run her hands across his chest and then his back, her fingernails urging him on.

They laughed afterward, and then cried a little, and both were cleansing. Leaving their clothes for Carrie to deal with, Dominic picked up his wife and carried her upstairs to bed.

She smiled the next morning to find him still in bed with her, and through the other emotions evoked, Dominic felt a lift of hope that all their lives could yet be well if only they would be left alone.

That hope lasted until early afternoon, when Mistress Holly appeared in the hall with Francis Walsingham close on her heels.

Dominic heard Minuette’s slight gasp of surprise and fear and he voiced quickly what his wife was thinking. “Elizabeth?”