“You aren’t ill, are you?” Alice asked me as she made certain I was settled in the tent I shared with five of the queen’s other maids of honor. “You look peaked and you keep chewing your lower lip and frowning off into the distance.”
“I grieve for him too, really, Alice. And, truth be told, it annoys me that they will parade through the so-called rebel brute north with the very cannons that blasted holes in my home in Ireland.”
“I know. But my point is you jump like a startled rabbit every time his name is mentioned.”
“Whose name? I spoke only of my uncle.”
“Edward Clinton, of course.”
She pulled my hands down and grasped them; I realized I’d twisted my single strand of pearls into knots. “My lady,” she said, whispering amidst the bustle of the others in the tent, “I know how it is to long for the unobtainable. I warrant you know that I was your uncle’s mistress after his lady died, but then he wanted to make another marriage . . . and now . . . look at him. . . .”
She drew in a sharp breath. “I did not mean to ever speak of that to you, and you so young, but now that you’ve been at court and have seen the ways of the world, I . . . I never speak of him and I thank you for giving me a life away from him. Forgive me, for I know I’m babbling. During his trial, I agonized for him, but now my memories are so dear and yet so painful.”
Though she was holding my hands as if to comfort me, I tugged her outside and walked her back by the slope of the hill beyond the fringe of flags and tents. “I am so sorry for your loss and grief, Alice, truly I am,” I told her, wishing I had better words of comfort, for she was crying freely now. “If it helps at all, please know that I am mourning my uncle too, for what kindnesses he did extend to me and to my family.” What would Magheen or Mother—before she became so sad herself—have said to help her? I wondered.
“I-I know,” she stammered, “you have mixed feelings about him, my lady, for . . . for what he—he and I—did that night in Dublin when your uncles were taken. I only wanted to please him then, hoping he would . . . would keep me.” She tugged her hands free and produced a handkerchief from up her sleeve to blow her nose and wipe under her eyes.
“Stay here a moment,” I told her. “I am going to tell the others I’ll be to bed later—not that they would miss me, since some of them are meeting their lords or lovers. Then we will talk more.”
Inside the tent, I made my excuses and one of the women, I recall, whispered, “Is it Sir Anthony? For I heard him tell His Majesty he favors you greatly.”
“I’ll not tell,” I said with a little smile I did not feel and a wave as I seized a shawl Magheen had made for me and darted back outside.
Dusk was darkening into night. Stars were popping out overhead, and the northeast wind was picking up. Alice and I linked arms and walked away from the torches being lit and sat on the grassy brow of a hill where we could see the camp, especially the queen’s large, beflagged tent, which was always pitched near ours. We looked at the back of it, but I saw shadows as a few people moved about inside. This late each day on the progress she had never summoned us to her, and oft said she was quite worn out.
Alice gave a sigh and wiped her eyes again. “It is hard to see others so happy in love,” she whispered. “The queen has been radiant on this tour, His Majesty’s centerpiece, his rose without a thorn. They seem a bit mismatched, but I wish them all happiness.”
I didn’t, but I patted Alice’s shoulder. How much I had disliked this woman at first, but now I wanted to comfort her. In like wise, how much I had wanted to hate Mary Tudor, but found I could not. But no softening, no womanly weakening toward the king and his lackeys, Dudley and Edward Clinton.
We sat in companionable silence and somehow that was enough. We had both suffered, but what woman had not? I felt a stab of sorrow for my mother’s plight, losing her beloved husband, her son Gerald, her brothers-in-law, and her home. And, silly girl that I was, I pitied myself.
“What’s that ado over there?” I asked, pointing as mounted men and wagons lumbered into our camp, but as soon as I asked, I knew. Captain Clinton was here with the armaments he’d brought part way by sea. They would be carted the rest of the journey through the brute shires as a warning to rebels. I squinted into the growing dusk but could not make out which one he was among the riders. Sir Anthony had told me that Clinton’s duty was to deliver the artillery pieces here and then others would take over to get them the rest of the way. So would Clinton go on with the cavalcade or head home, not far away, as I reckoned it?
I insisted on walking Alice to her tent, instead of the other way around, as she had me each night. She curtsied deeply to me with, “I am grateful to be in the service of such a lovely lady—lovely inside as well as outside.”
Though we had been both in and out of tents this night, I knew what she meant and was deeply moved. However much I missed Mother and Magheen—Margaret too—it was good to have a companion who was a friend, and I felt, somehow, we’d made that transition this day.
Still thinking of how young women needed the guidance of their elders, I saw the ubiquitous Jane Rochford, the queen’s guardian, slip out of the royal tent. She darted away at first, but then I saw her circle back to the rear of the tent, where she pressed her face to the canvas. Was she peering within through some slit I could not see from here?
Watching the carts with cannons creaking in, I lingered on the hill where Alice and I had sat. At last Lady Jane moved, a mere dark form against the whiteness of the tent. But she did not go in the front entrance where she had come out, as I was expecting. Rather, she knocked on the taut canvas where she stood, then apparently unlaced a back entrance, when none of the other tents, as far as I knew, had such. Perhaps since the king had secret chambers and accesses in his palaces, the royal tents had a back entrance.
When Lady Jane opened it to look in and windmilled her arm at whomever was inside, in the wan light I glimpsed the queen in a white night rail in a man’s arms, and not the arms of the king. Not even the arms of her secretary, Frances Dereham, whom she had summoned to her so many nights. It was a man who served the king in his chamber, one of his favorites, but not mature in years as were some of his staunchest comrades. It was the young and handsome Sir Thomas Culpeper.
I saw the man and the queen part reluctantly, for he darted back to kiss her again and whirl her once about before darting out the back of the tent with a nod at Lady Jane. While she laced up the opening, so I could not see so much as a slit there, he strode away behind several tents in the opposite direction, then toward the king’s large tent across the grassy courtyard.
And so, amidst all my agonizing, finally a piece of dangerous knowledge fell my way that could, if not bring down the king, at least hurt the man and his manhood.
“Crazed and careless, don’t you agree?” a man asked behind me in the darkness. I gasped and jumped up, though the voice was one I’d longed to hear. “But I can understand,” he went on. “I would almost hazard all for a taste of forbidden fruit myself right now.”
Edward Clinton! I was so shocked I hardly took in his words at first.
“How dare you seek me out!”
“Sad to say, Irish, I just found a privy place to relieve myself, and, as I returned to camp, there you were. So what did you see and what do you plan to do with such dangerous knowledge? Will the king kill others to protect his pretty bride queen, and will you be foolish enough to be in his gun sights? Or will he kill only her—and her lover, of course?”
“You . . . you saw it too?”
“I did, and thought you were another of the queen’s ladies besides Rochford—which you are—but put here to keep an eye on others seeing what we just saw. But you are here to spy to get evidence against the queen to torment the king, aren’t you?”
“You know nothing about anything, so leave off and leave me alone.”
“I wish I could,” he said, seizing my wrist as I started away. “But I can’t trust what you might say that would implicate me too, when I want no treasonous complications. It’s possible this will all be hushed up when the king finds out, but I doubt it—rather it will be a bloodbath. If the queen is being so foolhardy, she will be found out and suffer for it without your help, though I know you are passionate for revenge against the king.”
“You think you know everything about me.”
“Not nearly enough. But you did once promise me that when we next met—and that was months ago—you would tell me all the truth. Perhaps this time then.”
My pulse was pounding so hard I could barely hear his low voice in the wind. “Why,” he went on, “are you out unchaperoned to watch the queen, or do you have a tryst with someone else? Sir Anthony Browne, perhaps?”
“You, Captain Clinton, are the spy!”
“I keep abreast of court events even when I am away.”
“I suppose your lord and master, Lord Dudley, writes you all. I said, let me go,” I repeated, surprised he still held my wrist as I tried to pull free.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Irish.”
“I will scream—English!”
The wretch dared to chuckle. One-handed, he untied the cape he wore. In the rising wind, which had made it flap like raven’s wings behind him, I was surprised he took it off, for the night was getting colder.
“I admit I’m stalling for time,” he said as he draped it open over one arm, “but I’m trying to reason out the best way to get us both away from here so that, when the queen’s adultery—”
“It was but a kiss and a—”
“Grow up! I’d wager Kyme Castle that Culpeper’s been bedding her—at her invitation—at least during this jaunt through the shires. And John Dudley says she keeps Frances Dereham with her at all hours dictating letters with only Rochford around—and Cat Howard’s known Dereham for years. As for Jane Rochford, she’s been poisoned by hatred ever since the Boleyns fell, and I won’t have you endanger me or mine, or turn into the risk-her-neck fool the queen’s become when she’s had everything she ever wanted—except maybe someone to really love.”
“You are risking your precious reputation—mayhap your own marriage—to be out here with the Irish rebel like this. I don’t take it lightly that some of those guns you’ve been tending are the ones that were used to batter my home castle. And don’t think you can get off by saying you rue the day.”
“I’m starting to rue this day. Talk about taking a risk. But for some mad-as-a-Bedlamite reason, I’ve felt drawn to you ever since I saw you captive on that ship from Ireland to England, the very day you helped me decide to go to sea. Gera, I pray you’ll someday forgive me for this, but you’re going to have a little accident and go home with me.”
“What? I—”
It was all I got out before he swirled his cape at me, over me, then put his hand over my mouth, forcing the material partway in as I opened it to scream. He hefted me into his arms, however hard I kicked and thrashed, and carried me up and over the hill.
Go home with me
, he had said. Home to his castle or his manor house?
He laid me down on the ground; I heard him ripping the ties from his cape. He tied my ankles together, then my arms down at my sides. When I tried to suck in a breath, I was so undone I could barely get air.
“Stop fighting,” he said, and squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll be back as soon as I fetch myself a fresh horse, since I was leaving anyway.”
So calmly spoken. Was he helping me and himself, or the king from learning his royal wife was cuckolding him—yes, cuckolding the king of England! I knew not how long I struggled, even tried to roll away so Clinton could not find me when he came back, but it was futile. It seemed an eternity that I lay there, writhing, cursing him.
I heard a horse snort. “I’ll loose you as soon as we are away,” he said, and picked me up in his arms. He set me across a large saddle, then mounted behind me and spurred the horse away. I was both panicked and, God forgive me, thrilled.
But I would be missed. Though I had told one lady who shared my tent that I would be in late, surely they would set up a hue and cry for me, at least in the morning.
Clinton soon untied and unwrapped me, then just pulled the cloak back around my shoulders over my shawl. Indeed, my struggles and anger had made me quite warm enough. I sucked in sweet, cool air and looked around.
No hills now, for the land lay flat, much like my own Kildare. Looking like a ripe peach balanced on the horizon, a full moon was rising. It bathed us in enough light to see the dirt lane, though I supposed he could have followed it in the dark, since this was near his home.
“They will find me missing,” I told him while my shoulder and hips bounced against his hard body as we rode along.
“By then I will have a shepherd there to tell them that he found a red-haired woman unconscious at the bottom of a hill and sent her in a cart to Kyme Castle, his lordship’s home. And that she has a badly sprained or broken leg and hit her head, so she doesn’t recall her name or place—at least for now. Ursula and I will take you in, then get you back to London much recovered when the progress returns. And if you choose to gainsay that story later, you are a fool and will suffer the consequences, and, of course, bring me down too, if that is your wish.”