Betrayal in the Tudor Court. Darcey Bonnette

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СКАЧАТЬ how, my lady?” asked Cecily, who could not see anything unusual in it. Father Alec’s nature always seemed so affable and accepting of whatever fate doled out that it did not seem peculiar to her.

      “A man of the Church accepting the will of a mortal king … and such a peculiar will it is.” Lady Grace smiled. “He is a reformer.”

      Cecily’s heart pounded. She knew the Church of England only differed from the Church of Rome in one way. It deferred to the king rather than the Pope. The Pope was referred to as the Bishop of Rome. Otherwise England was a Catholic kingdom; masses commenced as they had before the split. Anything else was considered heresy. Henry VIII, once called Defender of the Faith by the Pope, was a son of the Catholic Church. That matters of doctrine should cause this separation was said to have devastated him. Cecily began to shudder. England was not a safe place for reformers. The Church, under the king’s direction, was reformed enough. Those who opposed it fled or were executed.

      “But, Lady Grace, it could be dangerous—”

      Lady Grace nodded. “Which is why I won’t say a word. Who do I talk to besides? And why would I betray him whom I hold so dear?” She reached for her decanter, taking a gulp. Her chin was slick with liquid. Cecily retrieved her handkerchief and wiped it away, ashamed to be doing so, not for her own sake but for Lady Grace, that she had been reduced to this, that Lord Hal let her, and that there was nothing anyone could or would do about it.

      “Maybe all these changes in the kingdom are a sign for all of us,” Cecily ventured with a nervous laugh. “Maybe … maybe we all need to change a bit. I know I have. Getting used to all these new undergarments—this corset!” She placed a slender hand to her belly and tried to laugh. “I swooned three times the first day I wore it!”

      Lady Grace’s eyes closed.

      At once Cecily was seized by an overpowering bravado she did not express save in the presence of Brey. She could not fight the words that came forth next. “Lady Grace, you must come out of your apartments now.” Her girlish voice was taut with urgency. She did not understand what emboldened her. Perhaps she was inspired by Anne Boleyn, a woman who got just what she wanted no matter if the world had to be set on its back for her to get it. Maybe it was being in the presence of the steely Mirabella. She did not know. All she knew was that if she did not intervene somehow, Lady Grace would die. She could not let her die.

      Lady Grace’s eyes fluttered open. A lazy smile. “What on earth are you going on about, girl?”

      Cecily took her hand. “You’ve punished yourself enough for your sins. You must come out now. You still do not have to leave your home, but at least come out of here. See Mirabella, what a beauty she has become. I know she does not visit you often—perhaps she is afraid.” Cecily drew in a breath, saddened that she must say it aloud. “It is frightening seeing you. Brey cries afterwards. Every single time.”

      Lady Grace averted her eyes.

      “Lord Hal is lost without you,” Cecily went on, hoping she was reaching her somewhere. “He probably does not know what to say or how to say it, but it shows in everything he does, in everything he does not say. It is not for me to know how it is between you and if you cannot come out for him alone I understand. Thus you must come out for us. I need you, too, Lady Grace. I am so overwhelmed with all of these changes. Soon I imagine we will want to begin planning my wedding to Brey. I know it will not happen for at least three or four years yet, but we should start planning my gown and I know you want to be a part of that—”

      “Enough, Cecily,” Lady Grace interposed. “God knows you have good intentions. But I am tired and you must go.”

      Cecily rose, looking down upon the wraithlike creature with a mingling pity and frustration as she turned away and fled.

      Grace was stunned. Little Cecily could bite! But such a gentle little bite. The child did mean well. Grace struggled to sit up in bed, drawing her bony knees to her chest as she thought.

      Hal came to see her. For a time they had been as a husband and wife, but as her health deteriorated their relations did, too. He attempted to coax her out of her self-imposed prison with promises and fair words. When that failed, gentleness evolved into threats and curses. Then he stopped seeing her altogether. She did not blame him. If she could avoid seeing herself she would.

      But the children came. Cecily and Brey every day, and Mirabella now and again, though they had little to say to each other. Mirabella usually prayed with her. Father Alec did the same, though he tried to offer counsel as well. But she did not know what to say to him any more. She had already said too much.

      Yet Cecily said what none of them would.

       I need you.

      She had forgotten what it felt like, what it meant to be needed. She had forgotten that she once valued it.

       I need you.

      Grace sank back against her pillows. She ached all over. She had lost her beauty. She had lost her self. She would not emerge the woman she had been when she entered these apartments four years ago.

      But she must come out. They needed her.

      Why did it take a child’s simple words to make her understand? It mattered not. What mattered was that she would emerge, that she would live.

      Because they needed her.

       5

      Thomas Cranmer, the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, announced that the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon was invalid in May of 1533. By now, the king’s intended’s belly swelled with what was hoped to be the Prince of Wales.

      Anne Boleyn was Queen Consort of England. Her coronation was set for the first of June. The Earl of Sumerton and his family were invited to attend.

      “We will go, won’t we, Lord Hal?” Cecily asked, her cheeks flushed with excitement. She found all gossip surrounding the new queen cruel and irrelevant. She wanted to attend the coronation, to see the beautiful woman who had brought a king and his kingdom to their knees.

      Lord Hal sat before the fire in the solar, idly shuffling and reshuffling a deck of cards. “I am uncertain. … London will be overflowing to stinking.”

      “But you have a home on the Strand,” Cecily persisted. “And I’ve never even seen it, not in all the years I’ve lived here. Couldn’t you open it up?”

      “Oh, Father, but it would be grand!” Brey cried. “To see the court!”

      “And the gowns!” Cecily added. “And all the pretty jewels. Oh, Lord Hal, you must take us!”

      “Please!” Brey smiled, falling to his knee. He was growing tall. Angles and lean muscle had replaced puppy fat from hours of training with the sword while wearing a heavy suit of armour. The promise of becoming an intuitive young man shone out of a boy’s eyes.

      “We will go.”

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