The Boleyn Deceit (2 page)

Gasps went up from the crowd, and in that covering moment, Minuette felt Dominic’s mouth alight softly just below her left ear and linger. She did close her eyes then, and swayed back slightly as his arms tightened around her waist and they both forgot where they were and who, and in a moment she would turn and their lips would meet and she might die if she waited any longer—

A great cheer exploded around and below them, and Minuette’s eyes flew open to see the moon pulling itself away from the darkness. By the tightness of Dominic’s grip on her waist, she knew his frustration. But he was—always had been—the disciplined one.

Within seconds she was standing alone once more, only warm cheeks and quick breathing to betray what no one had seen.

What no one must ever see.

Greenwich Palace had always been a dwelling of pleasure and luxury, of laughter and flirtation, of light and merriment. It was situated on the Thames five miles east of London, close enough to the city for easy access yet far enough to be well out of the crowds and squalor and pestilence. The last two King Henrys had expanded the complex, Elizabeth’s grandfather facing it in red brick and her father adding a banqueting hall and enormous tiltyard. Her father had been born here, as had Elizabeth herself. A beautiful palace for a beautiful court.

On this longest night of the year, the palace blazed with candlelight and what heat the fires and braziers failed to provide was made up for by the great press of bodies. Men and women dressed in their finest, drinking and dancing and circling around their king as though he were the center of their world.

But what happens to that world, Elizabeth wondered, when the center fails to hold?

Ignoring the chatter of voices directed at her, she watched her younger brother, worried and angry with herself for worrying. When William had returned from France last month with a treaty and a betrothal, he’d poured out to his sister his ardent love for Minuette along with his plans to wed her, and ever since Elizabeth had carried a thorn of anxiety that made itself felt at the most inconvenient times. It’s not as though he’s being indiscreet, she told herself firmly. He’s behaving precisely as a young king of eighteen should behave. Dressed in crimson and gold, William flirted with every female in sight (and even a man or two), he drank (but not so heavily as to lose control of his tongue), and he
carried on several layers of conversation with the French ambassador at once.

And he had not been nearer to Minuette than ten feet all evening.

Elizabeth, being determinedly talked at by a persistent young cleric, swung her gaze to where her chief lady-in-waiting held court of her own, surrounded by a gaggle of men, young and old, all clearly besotted by Minuette’s honey-light hair and her graceful height and the appealing knowledge that she was an orphan in the care and keeping of the royal court. With the influence she held in her relationships to Elizabeth and William, Minuette would have drawn an equal crowd even if she had been pockmarked and fat. But the men would not then have been eyeing her with quite the same expression.

A voice, very near and very familiar, broke her distraction. “How long,” Robert Dudley said conversationally as he neatly cut out the disappointed and ignored cleric, “is your brother going to continue baiting the French ambassador? William has the treaty he wanted—why make the poor man suffer?”

“Because he can,” Elizabeth replied tartly. “And you do the same—only with less care. Everyone knows your father continues to grumble about peace with France. How hard it is for him to swallow, a pact with the devil Catholics.”

“My father has moved on to other concerns. He’s not one to fight a losing battle.”

“As fine a commentary on the Dudleys as I’ve ever heard.”

Robert raised his eyebrows and lowered his voice that half step that made Elizabeth’s blood warm. “We choose our battles with care—political, religious … personal.”

His voice returned to its normal tones and he changed the subject deftly. “Are you looking forward to tonight’s audience? I
imagine Dr. Dee has found it difficult to read your stars, complex as you are.”

She gave him a withering look. “I am exceedingly skeptical, seeing as this Dr. Dee comes from your father’s household. No doubt you have whispered to him all the things you most want him to say of me.”

“You wound my integrity,” Robert said, hand on heart. But his voice was serious when he went on. “John Dee is not the sort of man to be persuaded by anything but his own intellect and the truth of what he sees in the heavens. I promise you, Elizabeth, whatever he tells you tonight will be as near as you will get to hearing God’s own words. I only wish I could be there with you.”

An hour later, as Elizabeth and Minuette slipped away from the festivities, she wished Robert were with her as well. She understood the need for privacy—anything that approached foretelling a royal’s future was dangerous, and though William had commanded the audience, that didn’t mean he wanted everyone at court to hear about it—but it was beginning to wear on her being just the four of them all the time. The “Holy Quartet” Robert called them, and not entirely in jest. And now that William took every opportunity of quartet-privacy to fawn over Minuette, Elizabeth’s patience grew thinner with each day.

The two young women wound through increasingly depopulated corridors until they came to one only dimly lit by two smoking torches, its brick walls chilly and bare. There was a single guard wearing the royal badge at a discreet distance from the closed door behind which waited their guest, not near enough to overhear but only to keep the curious away.

Elizabeth opened the door to the east-facing room herself, breath quickening with the rare feeling of anticipation. She was
not at all certain what was going to happen in the next hour, and she found the sensation unexpectedly delightful.

The room showed signs of a hasty attempt at comfort, from the deep fireplace blazing with light and warmth to the four cushioned chairs ranged along one side of a waxed wood table. Across the table was a single high-backed wooden chair; the man in it rose to his feet and bowed deeply. “Dr. Dee,” Elizabeth said. “Welcome to court.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” John Dee straightened and Elizabeth took him in. Although she’d known he was only a few years older than she, not even thirty yet, in person she was struck by his youth. Considering all Robert had said and all she had read from correspondents in England and abroad, it was something of a surprise that this young man had achieved such scientific and intellectual stature; then again, Dee had been a fellow at her father’s Trinity College at the age of nineteen. More recently the King of France had tried to retain him for his court, but John Dee had declined and returned to England after several years on the Continent, lecturing on Euclid and studying with men like Mercator. He had come to the Northumberland household in the service of Robert’s father, and all the court was anxious to meet this man who made things fly and read the stars and charted the heavens with surety.

Elizabeth sat and waved Dr. Dee back to his chair. Minuette sat next to her, uncharacteristically silent. She had been less than enthusiastic about this idea, which surprised Elizabeth. Usually Minuette was the first to embrace the new and entertaining.

Upon examination, John Dee looked like many a scholar or clerk, with his neatly pointed beard and unostentatious clothing. His eyes were deep and thoughtful and steady and he met her gaze without flinching. She liked those who were not cringingly cowed by her—but best not let him take too many liberties.

“Dr. Dee,” she said, looking significantly at the leather portfolio that lay between them on the table, “you are aware that it is treason to tell a king’s future.”

An irrelevant point. It was William who had commanded this private audience, William who had run with the idea of seeing what lay in his stars. Her brother was afraid of nothing, certainly not his future. But casting charts was legally forbidden for royalty, as it might be used as a pretext for rebellion.

Dr. Dee was no fool to fall into such an easy trap. “I do not foretell the future, Your Highness. I interpret the heavens, which is to say, I translate a very little of what God himself has laid in store. And what could God have in store for our good king but glory?”

Would he lie? Elizabeth wondered. She didn’t think he was an open fraud—even if Northumberland would fall for that, Robert Dudley certainly wouldn’t. But it took subtlety to tell a king what he did not wish to hear without making him angry. How much would Dee avoid saying? Or was William truly charmed, with a lifetime of good fortune inscribed indelibly in the heavens?

The door was shoved wide and William strode in, a little the better for good cheer, followed by Dominic dressed in all black and looking more than ever like a shadow ready to wrest the monarch from danger at any moment.

William went straight to Minuette. Bending low over her chair, he kissed her hand in a lingering and proprietary fashion. Just before it would become uncomfortable for the rest of them, he released her and turned to the visitor.

“Dee!” he said. “Welcome to court. We are always glad to reward those who are useful to us.”

No one could have missed the subtext, thought Elizabeth.
Tell me what I want to hear, and you’ll be rewarded.

Minuette had brightened with the men’s entrance. “Isn’t this thrilling, to discover what our futures hold in store?” She smiled at William (who laughed), then at Dominic (who did not). “Who is to be first?” she asked.

William dropped into the chair next to hers. “You, sweetling, if you wish. What better way to begin, then, with the stars of the brightest woman at court?”

Elizabeth caught the look that John Dee shot at William before dropping his eyes discreetly. Damn, she thought. He may be young, but he is no fool. And that’s all we need—someone leaking word of how Will behaves with Minuette in private.

She looked at the one person whom she knew was as concerned with secrecy as she was. Though Dominic had never spoken to her of William’s romantic agenda, he radiated disapproval. Now Dominic fixed William with his eyes as though sorely tempted to tell him to behave himself.

As though that had ever succeeded.

Dee cleared his throat and opened the folio. On the top page Elizabeth saw a large circle divided into twelve sections, some of them blank while others contained mathematical and astrological symbols. She knew that each chart would be different, based on the hour and place of their individual births. Despite her wariness, her interest flared as John Dee focused on Minuette. There was something new in his eyes, something that made Elizabeth sharpen her attention and think: This is a man who knows things.

“Mistress Wyatt,” he addressed Minuette, and even his voice had a new authority to it. “Our king is right in naming you a bright star. Your birth was a gift—to the king whose hour it shared and to those here who love you. You were born to be loved.”

Elizabeth, listening hard for every meaning, felt a twist of annoyance at that. To be loved was far too passive. She herself
would prefer to
do
the loving and retain the control. But not everyone was like her—and certainly Minuette could not complain at being loved by a king.

“There has been peril in your life,” Dee continued, “and doubt. Do not be too eager to escape either—peril is often the price for doing what is right, and doubt is good, as it makes us search our own motives—”

William interrupted. “Peril, doubt—I mislike this way of speaking to the lady. As the bright star she is, there must also be joy.”

For one moment, Dee met William’s gaze as an equal, assessing and perhaps understanding more than he should. Then he flickered down a notch and returned to Minuette. “Yes, mistress,” he said gravely. “There will be an abundance of joy, for such is your nature. There will be marriage, passionate and deep. Though peril and doubt walk hand in hand with such joy, you will count the price well paid for what you gain.”

That pleased William more, for he took Minuette’s hand, raised it to his lips, then continued to clasp it as she said, a little shakily, “Thank you, Dr. Dee. You quite take my breath away.”

Elizabeth would have bet everything she owned that Dee was not telling all. This was vagueness, but so well finessed that he might not be accused of foretelling an unpropitious future. Peril and doubt? If Minuette were to be William’s wife, there would be plenty of both. And even a marriage “passionate and deep” could be a thing of disaster in the end.

“Elizabeth,” William ordered Dee. “My sister must be next.”

She waited for Dee to search out her page in his folio—though he had not referred to Minuette’s at all, as if he had memorized their fates—but surprisingly, he disagreed. “If it please Your Majesty, I had thought to address you next. From the youngest to the oldest—there is symmetry in such a reading.”

William had been drinking just enough that Elizabeth wasn’t sure if he would snarl in anger or give way graciously. After hesitating, he gave way. “Who am I to gainsay the stars?” Another subtext:
I’ll let you take me in turn, but it had better be worth my while.

Dee gave a flick of a smile as he turned over Minuette’s star chart to reveal the one beneath it. “As you say. Despite the fact that you and Mistress Wyatt were born nearly at the same hour and in the same place, the stars reflect the differences between you. You know, naturally, that the comet that marked your birth was a portent of great power. The heavens marked you at birth, Your Majesty, and every moment of your life has been lit with the flame of that comet.”

“Flame can be grand or destructive,” William replied, not as lightly as it appeared. “Which am I?”

“A grand king in a time of destruction. The powers of Satan oppose you—”

“Wretched Catholics,” William muttered.

“—and Europe grows uneasy at England’s rise. There is much uncertainty on your path, Your Majesty. But a burning star can blaze the way to a new world—or it can flame out and fall into darkness.”

The last words rang ominously into the silent room. Elizabeth’s throat tightened. Had Dee just accused her brother of possibly choosing darkness?