The Queen's Lady Page 3

  “You’re sure there’s no boy?” Tyrell asked skeptically. Using the tip of the dagger that served as his eating knife, he picked a fragment of beef from between his chipped, yellow teeth. “No heir to spring up later and mar all?”

  Bastwick shook his head confidently. “I assure you, the girl is sole heiress.”

  “And you really can hoodwink those poxy clerks at the Court of Wards? Confound ’em with papers in your Latin mumbo jumbo? The stewards too? It’s a risk…” Tyrell broke off, his face darkening with mistrust over this area of expertise so far beyond his illiterate understanding. He lowered his voice, but his whisper was spiked with a threat. “Remember, priest, it’s cheating the King you’re talking of.”

  “We are talking of,” Bastwick corrected him steadily.

  The admonition brought bright red smudges of anger high on Tyrell’s cheeks. “Aye,” he snarled, “I mark my own hazard right clearly in this business. I mark which one of us will swing from the King’s gibbet if we’re found out. Not you. They can’t hang a precious priest, can they?” With a sudden motion of menace he lifted his dagger and pressed its tip to the hollow of Bastwick’s throat. Bastwick held his breath.

  “But I swear to you now, man,” Tyrell said, “blab of this to anyone, ever, and before I hang I’ll have you praying and whimpering for such a tidy end.”

  Bastwick remained calm. He had known the cash-starved Tyrell for barely twenty-four hours; the day before, they had struck up a conversation in a Westminster corridor as each waited with the milling gentlemen who came daily to pick up any crumb of patronage that fell from the table of Cardinal Wolsey. Both had left empty-handed, and they parted. But though the acquaintance was slight, Bastwick prided himself on his swift judgment of men. And when the scheme came to him, he was certain this chance of quick cash—the revenues of an heiress’s estates, to which a guardian was entitled—was one Tyrell could not resist.

  “You say true, sir, about the risk—my risk—in managing the clerks, and the estate stewards,” Bastwick said sternly. “You cannot do without me.”

  Tyrell’s eyes hardened. He held the blade rigid at Bastwick’s throat.

  Bastwick did not flinch. His eyes locked with Tyrell’s. “Therefore, my lord,” he went on, “you must guarantee me the benefice.”

  Tyrell held the right to appoint a priest to a benefice in the west country parish where he was lord. The thought of it made Bastwick’s heart race with joy despite Tyrell’s dagger. His own benefice! With fat tithes, and rents from the glebe lands he would control! It was far beyond anything he could hope for from the miserly vicar of Nettlecombe. The old vicar lived high and dined with the Bishop, while he, Bastwick, scraped by on a pittance as his curate. He deserved better. He silently cursed his peasant background for keeping him in such servility. Still, he reminded himself, the abbot who had seen promise enough in him to educate him had schooled him well in what was possible: the Church was the one institution that cared more for a man’s ability than his blood. Had not the great Cardinal Wolsey himself risen from his father’s base butcher’s shop? The cardinal—so rich, they said, he had fragrant imported herbs strewn over his palace floors twice a day. The cardinal—Chancellor of the realm, the second most powerful man in England, right hand to the King.

  “Alright, priest,” Tyrell growled, drawing back his dagger and sheathing it. “Profit’s good. And we share the risk. We are agreed.”

  Bastwick relaxed. He noticed again the light dancing over the jewel on his finger. Yes, he thought jubilantly, a man of ability needs only the will to plant his foot firmly on the steps that will lead him up to glory.

  The Larke household stumbled through the day following the master’s death. Honor sat close to Ralph beside the laid-out body of her father and tried to listen to what Master Ellsworth was telling her, but his words were all a jumble to her. He spoke of her father’s estates, of the King’s Court of Wards at Westminster, of gentlemen who would soon be bidding there for her wardship. She understood little of it. In the hushed bedchamber that smelled of death, she hung onto Ralph’s hand.

  That evening, as she and Ralph crossed the courtyard to join the mourning household already at vespers in the family chapel, horsemen clattered through the gate. Honor saw Father Bastwick riding at the head of the band. He pointed to her. “That’s the girl,” he said.

  The broken-toothed lord beside him ordered one of his men to seize her. The henchman dismounted.

  Honor darted behind Ralph. Shielding her, Ralph called to Bastwick, “What’s this about, Father?”

  “Let her go. This is Sir Guy Tyrell. The girl is his ward now.”

  “What? Can the Court of Wards have judged so soon?”

  “Do you question the King’s justice, man?” Bastwick asked witheringly.

  “Not I, Father,” said Ralph. “If this be the King’s justice.”

  “Ha,” the lord snorted, “all will be legal enough once I marry her to my boy, eh, priest?”

  Honor, pressing close to Ralph, could feel his muscles tense. He stepped backwards, pushing her back as well. He looked at the priest, “And what reward be in this unholy bargain for you, Father?”

  Honor saw the priest’s black eyes flash at Ralph with anger.

  “I tire of this fellow’s prating,” Tyrell growled. He signaled to his other men. They dismounted and stalked toward Ralph.

  Ralph fought, but he could not prevail over four men. They soon had him on his knees, his nose bleeding, his arms trussed.

  The henchman did not find Honor easy to subdue. She kicked and bit and screamed for help. Bastwick glanced furtively around the empty courtyard. He jumped from his horse, pulled a knife from his boot, and strode over to Ralph. He lifted Ralph’s head by the hair and held the knife at his throat. Ralph sucked in a breath. “Come tamely, girl,” Bastwick said, “or that breath will be his last.”

  Honor stopped struggling. Quietly, she stepped forward. The henchman hoisted her up onto the gelding brought for her.

  “We should take the fellow, too,” Bastwick said to Tyrell. “I believe there’s a bond between them that might serve us.”

  Tyrell nodded, understanding. As his men pushed Ralph toward the gelding, Tyrell warned him, “Any trouble from you, we’ll carve a finger off her.”

  So the two prisoners rode together out through Larke’s gates, each as the other’s reluctant jailer. Behind her, Honor heard the servants in the chapel singing prayers. And in the house, lying forgotten under the pillow on her bed, was the foreigner’s little book.

  The party passed under the city walls at Newgate where apprentices were being hanged in pairs. They reached the Great Western Road, and soon they had left London—and the King’s justice—far behind.

  2

  Tyrell Court

  On Honor’s twelfth birthday it rained all day. The great hall of Tyrell Court stank of the damp wool and sour sweat of Sir Guy Tyrell’s retainers, the armed band with which he intimidated the district. Having lounged and drunk their way through the enforced indolence of the soggy afternoon in the company of a few serving women of the household, they were waiting now for supper.

  Honor sat in a corner. Bored, she watched rain dribble from the louvered vent in the middle of the roof of the archaic hall. Tyrell, chronically short of cash, had made no improvements to the dark, medieval house his father had left him years before. Raindrops hissed onto the fire in the central hearth. Its perimeter was littered with old charred bones beneath the spit. Its smoke hazed the hall.

  Lady Philippa Tyrell, Sir Guy’s wife, came in blowing her perpetually dripping nose on a rag. She took her seat at the head table. Boys began carrying in the supper—trenchers of beef and bread and turnips, along with pots of ale. The company noisily settled in at the benches along trestle tables abutting the head table.

  Honor was approaching one of the tables when she saw Father Bastwick come through the arched doorway. She moved to a place farthest from the chair she knew he would take, the one b
eside Lady Tyrell. Bastwick was a regular visitor at Tyrell Court, and often, in Sir Guy’s absences, he took the lord’s seat. This morning, Sir Guy had left for business in Exeter. Honor grabbed a second trencher for Ralph as the serving boy passed. She slapped some extra bread onto it and squeezed closer to the amply fleshed body of Mary, a friendly brew-house servant, to force a space for Ralph. He hadn’t come into the hall yet. Probably still in the kitchen, Honor thought, telling jokes to the scullery maids.

  Honor knew why Bastwick flattered and coddled Lady Philippa. The lady’s cousin was an archdeacon in Exeter. Already, Bastwick had secured two more rich benefices through Lady Philippa’s pressing of this cousin. Honor knew all about Bastwick’s ambition. It glinted in his eyes, just like the jewel in her father’s ring. Bastwick wore the ring always. Wore it like a trophy, Honor thought, the way a savage wears a necklace of his slain enemy’s teeth. She hated him.

  She turned her eyes from Bastwick and caught sight of another face she loathed. At the far table, across the central hearth, sat the heir of this bickering, noisome place. Hugh Tyrell. Her husband.

  Father Bastwick himself had conducted the hasty wedding ceremony a week after he and Tyrell had abducted Honor. They had married her, at the age of seven, to eleven-year-old Hugh. That, she had soon come to understand, was her sole purpose here: Hugh would legally own all her property on the day their marriage was consummated. She understood the meaning of that word, too. The Tyrell Court servants, male and female, slept sprawled on the floor of the great hall, and no one living here could ignore the rutting that went on, day and night, in its grimy corners.

  Honor’s stomach tightened as she looked across at Hugh. He was now a pimpled sixteen-year-old who screamed at servants, lacerated his horses with whips in the hunt, and drank himself most nights into partial paralysis. Tonight, he was already close to stupefaction as he upended a leather wine bottle to his sucking mouth and drained its dregs.

  The meal was almost over. Still, Ralph had not come in. Honor was wondering if he had gone to the dairy to visit the tousle-haired milkmaid whose smiles of invitation, whenever Ralph passed by, were unmistakable. Honor was feeling a pang of jealousy, when Lady Philippa rose, uncharacteristically, to speak.

  Lady Philippa’s voice was as thin and pinched as her face, and the diners did not immediately hush to listen. Above their noise, Honor, at the far end of the table, could not catch the lady’s first faint words. But when grinning faces all along the tables turned Honor’s way, and then snorts and guffaws arose, she realized with horror that Lady Philippa was speaking about her and Hugh.

  “…our son to consummate his wedding vows. It was the express direction of my lord before he left for Exeter. ‘Make the girl a bride this night,’ he commanded. And so, friends, join me now…”

  Lady Philippa was raising her goblet in a toast. So was Bastwick. So were all the others. A toast to Hugh and his wife. That done, lewd words and laughter rolled from the company. Honor glanced over at Hugh. He was grinning like an idiot, trying to focus his glassy eyes on her. White spittle flecked the corners of his mouth. Honor’s stomach lurched.

  “No,” she cried. “I won’t.”

  The ribald din subsided. Lady Philippa stared at Honor stupidly. “What did you say?”

  “I said no. I won’t do it.”

  The company seemed so shocked that only one man’s feeble jeer and another’s obscene gesture greeted Honor’s statement. But these infuriated her even more than the first boisterous outburst had done.

  She jumped up. “I’d rather slit my own throat than lie with Hugh Tyrell.”

  Her shout echoed through the great hall.

  Lady Philippa’s face turned scarlet. She slammed her fist on the table. “We’ve fed and clothed you for five years, hussy. Now, by God, you’ll do your part.”

  “Never!”

  The company’s silence gave way to a low rumble of delight at the anticipated battle. But Lady Philippa only stood rigid in anger, as if unable to speak or move.

  Bastwick took control. Honor watched him stand and confer in whispers with Lady Philippa. Lady Philippa nodded curtly, obviously in agreement. Then, quickly and decisively, Bastwick ordered the company to disperse—all except Honor, Hugh, and one burly servant. The priest’s words were an unequivocal command, and the men and women immediately, if reluctantly, pushed away from the tables. Bastwick beckoned the burly servant over and spoke with him. Honor could not hear Bastwick’s words above the derisive laughter that burst from a pocket of people moving out into the passage, but something made her grab Mary’s elbow and whisper, “Find Ralph.”

  Finally, the great hall was clear.

  Honor remained where she stood, waiting for she knew not what. But her hands instinctively balled into defensive fists. In the silence Bastwick again said something into Lady Philippa’s ear. Then, with one cold glance of scorn at Honor, Bastwick too walked out of the hall.

  The burly henchman strode towards Honor. Lady Philippa did as well. Honor felt her pulse thudding in her throat. In one angry motion Lady Philippa swept away the debris of food from the table—knives and trenchers clattering to the floor—to clear a space behind Honor.

  The man splayed his palm on Honor’s chest. With a savage push he shoved her onto the table on her back. Her head thudded against a pewter bowl, hitting so hard that she saw purple and green fire swirl between her and the roof. The man held her down by her throat. She was choking, gasping for air. He hiked up her skirts, leaving her naked below the waist. He pried apart her legs. Then, still clamping her throat and one knee, he stood to one side of her.

  From the corner of her eye she saw Hugh swaying forward between her legs, his mother behind him, pushing him. Hugh was tugging loose the strings of his codpiece. Fumbling, he pawed the codpiece aside, exposing his flaccid penis.

  “Take a sniff of the girl,” his mother hissed, “and be a man.”

  Honor kicked. Her foot hit Hugh’s knee. He stumbled back, cursing. In the confusion, the burly servant lifted his hand from Honor’s throat. She fought her way up. But the henchman was quicker. One of his fists cracked against her jaw, and the other slammed into her abdomen, throwing her back again, her bowels on fire.

  She caught the lurid grin on Hugh’s face. Her pain had excited him. He pulled the henchman aside, forced his way between Honor’s legs, and thrust himself into her. Honor felt the violation like a jagged knife, stabbing, wounding, drawing blood.

  And then, suddenly, Ralph was there. He sprang at Hugh and hauled him off. He grappled Hugh’s head between both hands. Honor heard Hugh’s neck snap. He crumpled to the floor on his belly, his face hideously twisted around to his back.

  Lady Philippa screeched for help. Four men pounded in. The henchman pinned Honor down again while the others wrestled Ralph to the floor. Then, in anxious confusion, they looked to Lady Philippa for instructions. But she was shrieking, hysterical, pointing at the body of her son. One of the men hesitantly rolled Hugh over onto his back. He lay lifeless, his erection mocking death.

  There was panic. The men shouted. Lady Philippa wailed. The henchman let go of Honor to throw his jerkin over Hugh’s genitals. Someone cried, “To the well!” and two men lifted Hugh up and ran with him out towards the kitchen courtyard. Lady Philippa followed, staggering, clawing at Hugh’s body while one of the men tried to restrain her. The other men shoved Ralph to his feet and pushed him out too. Honor stumbled after them into the drizzle.

  In the courtyard they lowered Hugh onto the rain-slick cobbles by the well. The other men pushed Ralph down to his knees beside the body. Servants poured from the house, some carrying torches that hissed in the misty rain. The women stood huddled in fear, the men shouted, the children gaped. Frantically, the men sloshed buckets of water over Hugh. But he was dead. When the fact could no longer be denied, and Lady Philippa continued her uncontrolled shrieking, the frightened men began to kick Ralph. He curled into a ball and covered his head with his arms as boots thudded aga
inst his ribs, his shoulders, his back.

  Bastwick came from the house, pushing his way past the servants. The men kicking Ralph stopped and looked at the priest. Bastwick held up his hands, demanding order. He called for a couple of men to carry Hugh’s body up to his bedchamber. He commanded several of the women to tend to Lady Philippa. The rest of the servants he ordered back inside, all except the two men guarding Ralph. Bastwick glared down at Ralph with a look so full of fury that Honor wondered if Bastwick himself would deliver a fatal kick. But he remained calm. “Clap the murderer in the pillory,” he said.

  The men dragged Ralph away. Everyone dispersed from the courtyard, Lady Philippa flailing her arms from inside the retreating knot of women and moaning, “Father, Father!” Bastwick strode after her to comfort her.

  Honor was left alone. Everyone had forgotten her.

  Hours later, she sat stiffly on the edge of her bed. For some time she had listened to the household uproar around her—men and women rushing up and down stairs with potions to calm Lady Philippa, with reports on carrying out Bastwick’s instructions at the pillory, with cuffs and curses for the children who came to peep at the dead young lord. Then the clamor had dwindled, as if from exhaustion, and finally the house had quieted to silence.

  Honor tried to ignore the pain of her bruised body, tried to ignore the humiliating blood on the inside of her thigh, still sticky with semen. She needed all her concentration to think about Ralph. Come morning, she knew, they would hang him. The King’s law of arrest and trial did not penetrate this remote west country. She had often seen Tyrell hanging his own peasants whenever he saw fit. She knew she had to get Ralph away from here.