The Queen's Rival (12 page)

Gil was shown now by a stone-faced guard into a room locked from the outside. It looked to the fifteen-year-old boy more like a prison cell than a place where anyone could recover. There was an icy draft in the spartan room with only a single bed, a small table, and a window that let in noise from the street below and just a sliver of afternoon sunlight. The room smelled heavily of urine.

“He has been yelling for two days, although no one can quite make out the words,” the guard said matter-of-factly. The jangling keys seemed to rouse him.

“Who is it?” came a clotted, rheumy voice from the bed, but the man was buried beneath a mountain of blankets.

The guard returned to the door. “ ’ Twill be safer for you if I lock you inside. Just rap on the door when you’ve finished your visit, lad.”

The well-groomed boy gave in to a small shiver of panic. He drew in a steadying breath and moved forward. “ ’ Tis I, Father.”

“Who? Make way for the soldiers, lad! And mind the lances!”

“Father, you’re not in France. You’re safe back in England.” He moved tentatively nearer the bed just as George Tailbois bolted upright, casting off the blankets and wrestling them like an enemy onto the floor, his body sharp with tension.

“Careful, boy! He’s dangerous, that one! He’s got a dagger!”

Gil felt his eyes fill with tears. No matter what he thought of this man who had teetered on the edge of sanity for years, and embarrassed him more than once with his outbursts, George Tailbois had given him a name and legitimacy, if also not the privileged life among dukes, earls, and beautiful noble girls like Bess Blount that Wolsey had. He sank carefully onto the edge of the bed, forcing himself to be brave. “ ’ Tis all right, Father. You stopped him. He’s given up.”

“Bollocks! Never trust the enemy. They’ll play dead as a sturgeon, then rear up and gouge your heart out without even a thought. Who’d you say you were again?”

“Gilbert, Father, Gilbert Tailbois.”

“Gilly?”

“Yes, Father.”

He waited, almost not breathing, as a veil seemed to lift from the thin, haggard man’s watery blue eyes.

“It is you.”

“It is.”

Gil reached out and struggled not to recoil from the sour odor as he took the hand of his adoptive father.

“Forgive me. I must have been dreaming.”

“You must be very tired,” Gil said gently. “I brought you a sliver of marzipan.”

The older Tailbois smiled. “Ah, ’tis my favorite.”

“I remember.”

The formerly powerful sheriff, and servant to the king, took the small confection like a greedy child and pressed it between his lips. The taste seemed to bring him back a little, Gil thought.

“Thank you, Son. How is your mother?”

“She writes that she is well, sir.”

“And your sisters?”

Girls who were only half sisters. “My mother writes that they are well, also.”

George’s eyes filled quickly with tears. “I miss her so. . . . How many years has she been dead now?”

“She is not dead, Father. Mother wrote to me only a few days ago. She is home safe at the estate in Kyme with my sisters, eagerly awaiting your return once you are well enough.”

As quickly as the tears had come, they dried on his ruddy cheeks and rage took their place.

“Do not lie to me, Captain! ’Tis war!” He tensed again and sprang from the bed, but he lost his balance just as quickly and fell back.

Hearing the commotion, the guard opened the door again with another clattering of keys. “Everything all right in here?” he asked.

“He is just a bit disoriented.”

“A bit?” The guard chuckled unkindly. “He has been mad like that since they brought him here, weeping one moment, calling out wildly the next.”

He may have been only fifteen, but indignation brought courage. “Sir George Tailbois is a servant to King Henry, and thus, you are to show him the respect he has earned, do you understand?”

“Easy, lad. ’Twas no harm intended.”

“Is there nothing you can give him?”

The guard struggled and shook his head. “Whatever the doctors do seems to help him less and less.”

Gil felt a strange mixture then of pity and cold detachment. He bore the man’s name, certainly, but not his blood. Pray God, he would not somehow share George Tailbois’s slow descent into lunacy as well. One last time he took George’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I shall return soon,” he said.

“Who are
you
?” asked George Tailbois with a frightened, disoriented voice in response.

Very late that evening, after everyone had retired and Bess was at last free to be alone with her thoughts, she sank onto the edge of her small bed. She gave a weary sigh, then drew up from beneath the bedcovers, where she had hidden the delicate cradle blanket. She still could not reconcile the man who would keep such a sentimental object with the carefree, handsome sovereign she had met that day. But she knew well enough that blood ties were indelible and complex. This blanket made the untouchable king seem real. And it made her miss her own brother the more.

Tomorrow she must write to George. There were so many things to tell him. She must say that she had met the king, that he had actually spoken to her, and that she had begun already to make friends. She must confess to George that she still had possession of something she had stolen, since the guilt weighing upon her was tremendous. Most of all she must tell her brother she missed him desperately—William, Isabella, and Rosa, too. She so dearly longed for the simple games she had played with her siblings, and the days of fantasizing about what life at court would be like. Bess was quickly discovering how serious, and complicated, it was to succeed here with so many people clambering after the king, willing to do whatever it took to be first in his life and heart. As much as she liked it here, Bess could not imagine herself ever doing the same.

The next morning after prayer, Bess, Elizabeth, Jane, Princess Mary, and Mountjoy’s daughter, Gertrude, Marchioness of Exeter, entered the queen’s apartments together, famished. The meal to break their fast was decidedly more appetizing now than when the queen was in residence, and they looked forward to it with great relish.

“Her Royal Highness believes that self-sacrifice is pleasing to God, and that it will show Him her determination to give her husband a healthy, living son,” Gertrude explained.

“And while she makes deals with God, the rest of you must eat like prisoners while I am more often permitted to dine with the king,” Mary quipped as they walked amid the swish of skirts and the echo of their collective footsteps across the long pathway of tile. “That is not to say that she is not a splendid and loyal wife to my brother.”

“Perhaps, at times, a bit naive,” Jane boldly observed.

Bess watched Jane exchange an odd little glance with Mary, and she wondered how many things the two of them knew that she, as yet, did not. She was young, and still largely untested, but she was determined to change that by listening well and learning quickly.

“Mistress Blount.”

The man’s voice booming suddenly behind her was deep and menacing enough that her determination vanished as she flinched. So did the carefree smiles on the faces of the girls around her. Bess turned around to see Thomas Wolsey, the king’s stout and towering Almoner, his full face compressed by a frown, clutching in a single meaty hand the cradle blanket she had taken.

Bess felt her face burn. She had thought it well enough concealed beneath her bedding. She had not counted on anyone going through her personal things, but his boldness should not have surprised her after what she had witnessed in the king’s bedchamber. She had been caught, and there would be a harsh penalty handed down to her.

“By your leave, Mistress Blount, explain how it is that this article found its way into your chamber.”

Her heart beat like a drum against her rib cage. The punishment might well be so severe that even her parents would not be allowed to return to their positions. Her family could sink to ruin because of her. Taking the cradle blanket and then keeping it had been as foolish as it had been careless. A dozen images moved through her mind, foremost the look of grave disappointment that would darken her father’s face when she was relieved of her duties and returned home in disgrace.

“I—I,” she stammered, but no other words would come.

“Forgive me, my lord; it was my fault.” The surprising admission came from Gil Tailbois, although she had not even seen him enter the room.

He stood tall and self-assured beside her now but with just the right amount of contrition in his expression to balance the confidence. Bess marveled at him. Was he really about to take the blame for her?

“Master Tailbois, what precisely is the meaning of this?” Wolsey asked in incredulity, his full cheeks mottled red as his accusatory expression changed to one of anger. “You have never done a blatantly bad thing in your life.”

“And I did not mean to do it now. Strangely enough, I found it in a pile of other linens on the back stairs when Mistress Bryan and I were having a bit of fun there; just running about as you know too well we do. We took it to show Mistress Blount and must have forgotten it when I was told of your return to court. She, in turn, must have forgotten that I left it behind.”

The silence that fell around them was sudden and heavy. Bess dared not even look at Gil for the masterfully easy lie he had just told in order to protect her. She had never been more shocked in her life.

Wolsey’s discerning gaze moved critically from Gil to her and back again.

“Is that the truth, Mistress Blount?” he asked sternly.

“My lord, I cannot honestly—”

“You cannot honestly take the blame for me; that is what Mistress Blount was about to say,” Gil said, interrupting her. “But it was a noble gesture.”

The nobility belonged entirely to him, but she was too stunned to say more.

“Very well, Master Tailbois, I shall deal with you later. Mistress Blount, my apologies for any offense,” Wolsey said, nodding perfunctorily, the tension of the moment quickly defused.

“None taken, my lord, I assure you,” she replied in a much softer voice than she normally used, since her mind was still reeling. Bess had no idea what Gil was even doing here in the queen’s apartments, let alone at that critical moment to save her. Nevertheless, she was grateful.

After Wolsey and Gil had gone, and the girls sat down to take their meal, Bess turned to Elizabeth, leaning in as she did so no one else would hear. “Why on earth would he have done that?”

“Because it was our fault in the first place,” Elizabeth replied simply, and with seemingly uncharacteristic charity. “Gilly may not be much to look at, but he is a man of honor. Or he will be—once he is a fully grown man.” She chuckled, pleased with her own sense of humor. “And he has a way with Wolsey. Everyone says so.”

“Gilbert would seem a good friend to have.”

“How appropriate.” Elizabeth Bryan laughed a bit more loudly. “Because he says the very same thing about you.”