In a Treacherous Court (22 page)

T
he view from the royal apartments at Greenwich over the Thames was spectacular. Parker saw the five-story keep in which he stood reflected in the water, blurred at the edges, the red brick façade bright against the gray cloud backdrop. The keep began to wobble at the top as a boat cut across the castellations.

He waited, apart, as the King looked over Susanna’s work, delighted as a child with the designs and colors. He didn’t know another man who threw himself into the moment as much as his sovereign. Still and watchful much of the time, he could enter into play with the abandon of a lion cub. But when necessary, when threatened or merely annoyed, he could kill without compunction or conscience.

“I am loath now to send these writs out, they are so excellent.” As the King spoke, the reflection in the river dimmed, and Parker looked up to see some of the sunlight had been cut off by the thickening clouds.

They were not alone with the King today. His secretary was busy at a desk, and a few members of the privy chamber were quietly discussing their business. There would be no chance to talk to him privately until later.

“Parker.”

Parker turned to see Norfolk at the door. He tamped down hard on every emotion surging through him and bent in a shallow bow. He did not answer or make any move to join Norfolk.

He had often thought that if the Grim Reaper had a face, it would be Norfolk’s. His eyes were like smooth onyx in a face that showed cruelty and power in every line. His nose dominated it like the beak of a vulture.

He had a mind as twisted and brutal as the thugs on the docks, the only difference between him and them was the veneer and gilding of wealth and ancient lineage.

Norfolk had often said with contempt that the King could make noblemen, but he could not make gentlemen. The irony of his statement had never been lost on Parker.

As Norfolk was forced to make his way across the room to him, Parker realized he even moved like a thug, flicking his eyes around the room for any threat as he stalked forward, his fists clenched and ready.

“Norfolk.” The King’s call forced him to turn from his
course. “I need a word. And you must see the work of my Flemish painter.” The King gallantly bowed to Susanna in dismissal, and as she curtsied in return and turned to Parker, Norfolk jostled her, making her stumble.

Norfolk threw a quick glance over his shoulder as he did it, giving Parker a death’s-head smile. The meaning was clear. He could get at her anywhere.

Parker straightened, drawing everything in him into a tight coil. To attack, to eviscerate, to tear limb from limb—all possibilities presented themselves.

“Most poorly done, Norfolk.” The King’s words were sharp, his hand coming out to take Susanna’s elbow. “You think my rooms too small, that you must knock my painter over to approach me?”

Norfolk took a step back, and Parker had regained enough control of himself to see the fury in the King’s eyes.

Henry prized grace and elegance, courtly manners, romance. Norfolk was a boor whose only accomplishment was hunting deer and whose idea of courtly romance was to beat his wife when she complained about his mistress being given quarters in her home. He would never understand why the King had opened his court to men who were not noble, and hadn’t the self-knowledge to realize that without his title, he would never have been welcome there himself.

“My pardon, mistress.” The apology was forced from stiff lips and bore no sincerity.

“Your Grace.” Susanna gave a curt nod and stepped away
from Norfolk as if he had the plague. She walked toward Parker, the bravado gone from her face now that only he could see, and he took her hand and kissed it.

He looked up and saw Henry watching him, an indecipherable look in his eye.

He lowered his own in deference. “When you have a moment later, Your Majesty, I would have a word.”

The King nodded and made a shooing gesture with his hand. “I will take care of business now, and then I refuse to leave my hunting any longer. We will speak tonight, Parker.” He turned to his desk, Norfolk by his side; but as Parker began to escort Susanna from the room, the King looked over his shoulder. “I have not forgotten what I promised you the other night, Parker. Do what you must.”

Parker bowed in response, and his eyes went to Norfolk, who stood frozen.

He smiled at his enemy as he answered the King. “I will do whatever needs doing.”

T
he gardens of Greenwich were magnificent.

“Like the palace gardens of the Burgundian Princes,” Susanna marveled. “The red brick of the façade is also similar to the palaces of my home country.”

Parker looked at the gardens as if seeing them for the first time. “They are fine enough.”

Susanna smiled. “You would prefer them more rambling
and wild? With many colors and scents, rather than laid out in elegant rows?”

He stopped short, and stared at her. “Aye. I would prefer that.”

A shout came from ahead of them, the kind of whoop given in victory, and Parker took her elbow as they went forward. They turned the corner of the high hedge they were following, and came upon four men bent over a game of dice.

“These four look desperate enough to have a de la Pole letter each in their pockets,” Parker murmured. “And they do say misery loves company.”

The men were seated in a small open-sided pavilion, and looked incongruous in their setting. Their faces were rough from lack of a shave, and their eyes were red. Susanna guessed they had not slept the night before, nor visited their chambers to change. Their dark evening clothes were out of place in the light, snow-dusted garden setting.

Their merriment stopped as soon as they caught sight of Parker, and Susanna could see from the lack of lingering amusement in their eyes and on their lips that none of the whoops of delight she had heard had been genuine. These men were determined to seem jolly, no matter what their true circumstances.

“Gentlemen.” Parker gave a shallow bow, and Susanna followed his lead, sketching a curtsy.

“You have been scarce this last week, Parker.” The man who spoke, a young nobleman with a handsome face and dark
hair and eyes, rested his chin in his palm. Susanna thought a moment or two of silence would send him to sleep. He looked hollow-eyed and his words were slurred.

“I have been kept busy by my loyalties to the King.” Parker spoke the words without inflection, but the men’s attention seemed riveted on his face.

“What business is afoot?” another asked with frightening intensity, as if Parker held the key to his doom.

They all seemed wound tight as springs, but not united. Each was alone in his misery.

“I do not discuss the King’s business openly.” The feeble sun wedged a finger of light through the low gray clouds, and Parker shaded his eyes. “But perhaps if you would speak with me privately, Neville? If each of you would speak with me privately?”

Susanna realized with a sharp pang of joy how much she’d missed the sun. Spring wasn’t far off, but this winter had dragged on for so long. It had begun early, and looked set to stay late. This weak beam reminded her that the cold would end, though. Eyes closed, she tilted her head to feel the gentle fingers of warmth on her cheeks and forehead, and smiled.

After a moment, she became aware the men had fallen silent. She lifted a hand to her eyes and opened them to find Parker and all four courtiers staring at her.

Had she done something wrong? She cast a quick look at Parker, suddenly aware again that she was on foreign soil and did not know all their ways.

But Parker did not look aghast; he looked stunned.

Confused, she glanced at the other men, who stared back at her, mouths open.

“You are illuminated,” Parker said at last, and Susanna realized the sunlight had narrowed to a thin beam, and that she stood in a small pool of pale gold that caught the bronze velvet of her gown. Unwilling to step out of its warmth, craving every moment of it, she smiled at Parker.

“You need gold in the pattern for a work to be considered a true illumination.” She lifted her hands, and felt the warmth of the sun on her palms. “But I will take this gold over the real thing at the moment. It lifts my spirits.”

“My pardon, but who
are
you, mistress?” The question was asked by the man Parker had called Neville, his tone hushed. He pushed back in his chair and stood.

Susanna considered her answer. It was no secret, yet Parker had consistently refused to introduce her. She glanced across to him, and saw he was looking at her with a steady, intense look she did not know how to read.

She lifted her hand, palm up, giving him permission to answer as he saw fit, and he turned back to Neville.

“I’m so tired.” The youngest one, the man who had spoken first, rose to his feet, knocking over a flagon of red wine as he stumbled to get out of his chair. “Perhaps she is an angel of mercy.” His hand, resting on the table, was in a pool of red wine, and with a cry of shock he leaped back a step, falling over his chair and landing with a thump on the wooden floor of the pavilion. He began to weep, a quiet
sound in the absolute stillness. “I am in grave, grave trouble, my lady angel.”

Susanna heard the desolation in his voice. “You were tricked into accepting a letter from someone at the docks, and now it looks as though you are a traitor,” she said.

The words were barely out of her mouth when Neville leaped from the pavilion, grabbing her in a stranglehold. She felt the press of a knife below her right ear as he held her against him, using her body as a shield against Parker. “What do you know of this?” His words were snarled, wild, his breath hot and feral on her neck.

Susanna reached deep within, found calm and courage. She stared at Parker, willing him to look at her, to see beyond the gales of fury howling behind his eyes.

“Parker.” She spoke his name the way only a lover could. She hid nothing from him in that one word, and she saw him blink.

He began to stalk forward, so intense that Neville twitched behind her and his knife nicked her flesh.

Parker stopped short, his eyes on her neck, and she felt a tickle of blood running down to pool above her breastbone.

“I can help you in this matter, Neville.” Parker spoke so low that everyone strained forward to hear him. “But if you do not step away, if you do not take your filthy hands off her, I will break you. I will denounce you. I will use every resource at my disposal to have you up at Traitor’s Gate.”

Neville tensed, and then he stepped back, breathing heavily.

The young nobleman was still on the floor in a growing puddle of red wine, but the other two men had risen slowly from their chairs and were very quiet. Weighing everything, undecided what to do.

Susanna felt light-headed all of a sudden. She lifted a hand to her neck, and met Parker’s gaze.

With a curse, he closed the distance between them, lifting her up and setting her farther from Neville. She leaned into him, but he set her on her own feet and turned back, muscles bunched, and punched Neville in the face.

The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier:
His conversation with women to be alwayes gentle, sober, meeke, lowlie, modest, serviceable, comelie, merie, not bitinge or sclaundering with jestes, nippes, frumpes, or railings, the honesty of any.

Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman:
To come to daunce, or to showe her musicke with suffringe her self to be first prayed somewhat and drawen to it.

N
eville looked up at him, nose bleeding, his gaze surprisingly clear and focused. “Your pardon, Parker. I am at my wits’ end. I should never—”

“No, you should not.” Parker extended a hand. “It will never happen again.” He tamped down the desire to hit Neville again as he hauled him up, and Neville must have seen the flicker in his eyes, because he stepped away hastily, fumbling for an overstitched kerchief for his nose.

“Your pardon, mistress. I … your pardon.”

Parker curled an arm around Susanna and brought her close to his side. She had been so calm, so sure of him. He could not help shuddering in a breath and stroking back her
hair with his hand. He saw she had taken out a small square of white linen and was dabbing at her neck. It had almost stopped bleeding.