The Queen's Lady Read online

  No, she thought, that was not quite true. One regret did nag—she had lost track of Ralph. He had thought it best, since the death of Hugh Tyrell at his hands, to stay clear of the law. So he had not come to the trial, had waited at an inn instead, and rejoiced with her when she ran to him to report the wonderful news. And then, as soon as she was securely settled with Sir Thomas, Ralph had left London. Honor had no doubt that he would merrily thrive in any place he found himself, but she often wondered where he was living and what he was doing, and who was laughing now at his jests and silly stories. She missed him. Dear Ralph, she thought, I owe him so much. How he suffered, that night at the pillory, for my sake…

  There was laughter outside the New Building. Honor looked out the window. Sir Thomas was striding across the lawn toward her, laughing. She hurried to the door and stepped outside to meet him.

  “Oh, child, I would you had stayed,” he said. Reaching her, he placed a hand on her shoulder to steady himself. “Or, rather, it’s well you did not, for I could not have kept a serious face if anyone had been there to hear.”

  “Why? What is it, sir?” she asked, smiling in anticipation.

  “Oh, I would not have missed this Vicar’s visit for the world! He wanted…” He broke off, shaken by another wave of laughter. Recovering, he set his face into a mask of zeal that parodied his earnest guest. “The Vicar came to ascertain from me the exact location of Utopia. He dreams of making a voyage there.”

  “What?” she cried. Utopia was More’s popular book. Written in Latin, it was a lively account of his meeting with a traveler named Raphael who had made contact with an extraordinary island commonwealth in the New World. The book described the Utopians as a stable, highly organized and, though heathen, morally upright people who lived lives of monastic rigor. But it was a work of pure imagination; its title meant “no place” in Greek. “And does he really believe such an island exists?” she asked.

  “Absolutely. His dream is to make a missionary expedition there! To bring to the ignorant Utopians the blessed civilization of the Church.” He wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. “Ah, a most delicious fool.”

  “Well, sir, what he has taken from you in the ill-timing of his visit he has repaid in entertainment.”

  “True, true. Oh, child, I would not belittle a man for ignorance, for we are all born ignorant. But this was a self-blinkered, pompous fool. A dangerous one, too, for he has the teaching of boys under him.”

  He hooked his arm in hers and together they strolled toward a copse of oak trees that shaded the fish pond. By the time they reached the pond he was patting his pockets, searching for something. “By the way,” he said, “I forgot, earlier. I have a gift for you.” His hands stopped against his chest in midsearch, and he added gently, “I’m sorry I missed your birthday last week, child.”

  She blushed, pleased that he remembered. “No matter, sir. Though,” she teased, “I call your excuse of the King’s summoning you to Greenwich a feeble one.”

  “Ha! Perhaps I should have insisted he let me go. We were back in Westminster by then. ‘I’m sorry, your Grace, the letters to the French King needs must wait and I must ride to Chelsea, for Honor Larke is seventeen years old today.’ The King is a fond father himself. He might have given me Godspeed and one of his finest stallions to carry me.”

  “Or he might have had your head,” she cried. “No, I’d rather see you past the date, and whole.” They laughed together.

  “We didn’t get much work done that night in any case,” More said, rummaging again inside his robe, “what with the music and the bonfires.”

  Honor could well imagine it. Her birthday was the twenty-fourth of June, Midsummer Eve, a holiday when bonfires were lighted in the streets and doors festooned with garlands, and people danced and sang through the city with drums and horns and pipes. “When I was little, in my father’s house,” she said with a soft smile, “my manservant, Ralph, told me that people danced around their fires at midsummer just to celebrate my birthday. And truly, sir, he assured me with such long-faced foolery that for many childish years I believed him.”

  “Charming,” More chuckled. “Ah!” He had found the object of his search. From a deep pocket he withdrew it and held it out to her. It was a necklace, a delicately wrought string of coral and pearls, simple and exquisite.

  “Oh, sir!” she stammered, delighted.

  More looked baffled. “I fear you misunderstand. That is not my gift. No, no, that is only an ornament, a bauble, a toy for a child.” Solemnly, he took her hand in his. “Put it away,” he said quietly. She obeyed.

  “My gift to you is something much more precious. More lasting. A reward for the great progress you have made. It’s incredible, really, when you came here you couldn’t even read, and now your Latin is as good as mine. Well,” he winked, “almost. And you have excelled in mathematics, music, philosophy, even astronomy. In fact, your tutor tells me you are so far advanced in that science that you can point out not only the polar star and the dog star, but are also able—and this requires the skill of an absolute master—to distinguish the sun from the moon.”

  She laughed.

  “Yes,” he said, “your mind now rests on a rock solid foundation. And your heart,” he smiled, “remains as soft as God could wish. Truly, child, you could not please me more.”

  Honor gazed at him, feeling too much happiness to hold inside. She threw her arms around his neck, her cheek against his. His hands went to her back and he pressed her to him. Then, suddenly, he pulled away. His face was flushed. Abruptly, he stepped toward the pond. For a moment he kept his back to her. She waited, fearing her impetuous show of affection had angered him.

  He turned around to her briskly, and she was relieved to see that he was smiling again. “And now, Honor Larke,” he declared, “my gift to you. It is…a name. A name in Greek, as befits a scholar of this little academy. ‘Kale kai sophe.’ It means, ‘Fair and wise.’ What think you of it?”

  Tears of happiness brimmed in her eyes. “A wonderful gift.”

  “And yours alone.” Solemnity darkened his smile. “Remember, child, a thousand girls have necklaces.”

  A shout startled them. “Sir Thomas! Come quick!”

  Across the grass Matthew stood where the lawn sloped down to the river. He was waving his arms. “Murder!” he cried.

  More and Honor shared a horrified glance. They raced towards the breathless Matthew who pointed down at the reeds by the river’s edge. On the bank, a man was bending over a girl, a maid in More’s household. She was kneeling and looking up at the man. He held a knife at her throat.

  “Stop!” More cried. “Villain!”

  The man spun around in surprise. His knife glinted in the sun.

  More scrambled down the slope, his robe flapping, his feet awkwardly thumping and slipping on the lush grass. He was running too fast and he lost his footing and skidded, then thudded onto his rear end. Following, Honor sailed past him, even more awkward in her long skirts. She windmilled down the hill out of control and crashed into the arms of the would-be assassin who dropped his knife under the force of the impact. The two stumbled back together as if locked in some heathen dance step. They finally came to a halt at the lip of the riverbank.

  There was a moment of stunned silence. The maid wobbled to her feet and shyly looked at More still sitting at the base of the hillside. “Pardon, Your Worship,” she stuttered, her hands patting at the cap that covered her ears. “A knot in my cap string. This gentleman offered to cut it for me.”

  More stared, uncomprehending. The girl cupped her hand beside her mouth and whispered loudly, “A foreigner, Your Worship. He speaks no English.”

  The man stepped around Honor and came shakily toward More, his hands uplifted like an apprehended criminal. He was young and of a stocky peasant build, with a moon face and wide, slate blue eyes. In serviceable Latin he made a nervous explanation. “I am an artist, sir. I was moved to sketch this young woman. I suggested she remove he
r cap. It was only the strings I wanted to cut.”

  “An artist?” More asked feebly.

  “Hans Holbein is my name. A citizen of Basle. I come to you on the recommendation of our mutual friend, Erasmus.”

  A smile cracked across More’s face. He slapped his green-stained hands together and bits of grass flew from his fingertips. “Master Holbein, on my backside I welcome you to England. Care for some burned roast beef?”

  In the great hall, More leaned back pensively in his chair at the head of the main table. What he was hearing amused him, yet troubled him at the same time: his twenty-year-old daughter, Cecily, was reading aloud a letter Erasmus had sent with the young artist. It was clear to More that his extended family felt none of his own ambiguity. He could see they were all entertained by Erasmus’s news. They sat beside him and at two long lower tables: his wife, his father, his son with his fiancée, his three daughters and their husbands, a clutch of grandchildren, assorted music masters, tutors and clerks. The kitchen maids had cleared away the first courses—the capon with apricots, the salvaged roast beef, the braised leeks—and everyone was listening to Erasmus’s letter, their spoons clacking over bowls of excellent strawberry pudding from Lady Alice’s kitchen. The renowned Dutch scholar had written to More:

  “The arts are freezing here, so I have encouraged Holbein to come to you in England to pick up a few coins.”

  There was a murmur of approval and all heads turned to the red-faced artist. All except Alice, as usual, More noted; everyone except her and the very young children understood the Latin letter. His wife had rejected his every attempt to teach her to read, even in English. Cecily continued reading:

  “As the firestorm rages here over Luther, I am condemned by both sides for my refusal to join either. I am told that a follower of Luther in Constance, a fellow who was once my student, has hung my portrait near the door merely to spit at it as often as he passes. My lot has become like St. Cassianus who was stabbed to death by his pupils with pencils.”

  Many at the table laughed. Sir Thomas More did not. How, he wondered, could Erasmus make jests about a man as dangerous as Luther? Disturbed, he fingered the rim of his goblet of watered wine as Cecily read on. The letter ranged over several more items of news in Basle. Then:

  “Please convey my thanks to young Mistress Larke for the enjoyment her thoughtful essay on St. Augustine’s City of God has given me. Or better yet, tell her that I will write my appreciation to her personally as soon as time permits.”

  More glanced at Honor with a proud smile, as did the rest of the family. Following the young artist, it was Honor’s turn to blush.

  Servants cleared the dishes and Honor and Cecily began a lute duet. Watching Honor, More remembered the letter inside his robe. He beckoned Matthew over and told him to ask Mistress Larke to come out to his library when she was finished playing. He excused himself from the table.

  He passed through the sultry orchard, deep in thought. Though he walked slowly, the heat was oppressive, and sweat prickled his skin by the time he reached the New Building. The sweat made the coarse fibers of the hair shirt he always wore under his linen scratch even more uncomfortably than usual. Good, he thought with a chuckle at himself: a perfect, penitential complement to that second helping of beef.

  The library was pleasantly cool. He laid the Queen’s note on his desk and shifted a letter that was already lying there so that the two papers were lined up side by side. He regarded them for a moment, then turned to the window and looked out at the woods beyond the pond. What to do? To which request should he agree?

  Which was best for the girl?

  A smile crept to his lips as he recalled his laughter with her over the foolish Vicar. But the smile quickly faded. How the world has changed, he thought, since I wrote Utopia. When it was published no one had even heard of Martin Luther. Yet the very next year Luther nailed his wretched theses to the door of Wittenburg Church, and nothing had been the same since. That same year, Sulieman the Turk marshaled his dreadful army, too. And now? The pestilence of Luther’s malice infects all Europe. The Turk has smashed the Hungarian army and casts his hungry eye westward on us. And in Rome…

  Dear God, Rome…

  Everywhere, Christendom quakes and crumbles. Can the old bonds hold? Everything has degenerated. Even here. The King and Queen, who used to live together in such handfast companionship and never stooped to wrangle…

  He did not let himself finish the thought. It did no good to stray down that path. Besides, he reassured himself, that particular crisis will be resolved once the King comes to his senses over the Boleyn girl, which must be soon.

  He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. He was tired, needed rest. It seemed he had not slept soundly since the news had reached England two weeks before of the catastrophe in Rome. So appalling. The civilized world had been stunned by it.

  In May the Holy Roman Emperor Charles’s troops, warring with France for years over pieces of the Italian peninsula, had fought their way to Rome. They were a mixed brew of Spanish, Italian, and German mercenaries. Unpaid for months and hungry for spoils, they mutinied. They burst the city walls and brought Rome to its knees with a reign of terror never before seen in Christendom. A third of the population was massacred. Cardinals were prodded through the streets and butchered. Nuns, auctioned to soldiers, were raped on their altars. The aisles of the Vatican were used as stables, and the precious manuscripts of its libraries shredded for horses’ bedding. Pope Clement, with the jewels of his papal tiara sewn into the hem of his gown, fled the Vatican along a corridor connecting it to the Castel Sant’ Angelo. While soldiers looted the Church’s palaces, and stacked corpses rotted by the river, the Pope huddled in the Castel under siege. Finally, with Rome in ruins, the Emperor allowed the Pope to escape north of the city to Orvieto.

  More shook his head, still hardly able to believe the enormity of the disaster.

  There was a soft knock at the door. He turned to see his ward step into the room. He shook off his gloomy thoughts. “I have received a rather surprising communication from the Queen,” he said as pleasantly as he could manage.

  Honor stood waiting, and More saw by the slight wrinkling of her forehead that she could not imagine how the Queen’s message could concern her.

  He sat down at his desk. “It seems you have made a most favorable impression on Her Grace. Tell me, child, what passed between you and the Queen at Bridewell?”

  He was referring to the glittering public ceremony some time before to which all the nobility of England had been summoned. The King had there enlarged his six-year-old illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, with the titles of Duke of Richmond and Somerset. It had been an extraordinary, symbolic declaration by the King, acknowledging, in the absence of a legitimate son, Fitzroy’s right to some rank as a claimant to the throne. Sir Thomas, attending with all of his family, had read out the boy’s new patents of nobility.

  “Her Grace was ill with a headache, sir,” Honor answered. “The day was very hot. She became so indisposed she had to leave the hall. I’m sure you remember, for everyone was most concerned.”

  More remembered it well. The Queen had stood stoically by her husband’s side while he made a mistress’s bastard eligible to inherit the throne. Not only was it an insult to the Queen, it also threw the claim of their daughter, the Princess Mary, into jeopardy. Watching his ward’s open-faced reply, More wondered how much Honor had really seen that day. Had she understood anything of the humiliation the good Queen must have been suffering?

  “Her Grace asked me to accompany her to her private chamber,” Honor continued. “Perhaps it was only because I was near at hand. Though I did notice that Mistress Boleyn was nearer.”

  Did she really know nothing of the Boleyn girl’s infamy? More was touched by the innocence of the statement. Gratified, too, for it was further vindication of his judgment to settle his family in Chelsea: city gossip was just far enough removed.

  “In any case,” Honor went o
n, “Her Grace asked only me. My heart ached to see her in such distress, and I offered to read to her. I read from Louis Vives and it seemed to calm her.” Quickly, she added, as though to deny too much credit, “The chamber was cool and dark, sir, both good medicine, I do not doubt. Her Grace was wondrous kind to me.”

  More could not suppress a jolt of pride. Most of the Queen’s ladies were vain, ignorant flirts. In fine weather they rode out hunting and hawking with their courtier admirers, and when it rained they turned to cards, cat’s cradle, and gossip. Though they were all from prominent families, they had been sent to court only to make profitable marriages, and few of them were even literate, let alone able to soothe the nerves of this accomplished Queen by reading to her in learned Latin.

  “Child,” he said suddenly, “what say you to matrimony?”

  Her mouth fell open. “Leave here? Leave you?” she blurted. A blush swept over her face and she looked down.

  More was surprised. Had she really not thought about marriage yet? A girl so lovely, so aware? Perhaps not; the stricken look on her face told him that her heart was here, at Chelsea. He realized that it pleased him inordinately. The realization was unsettling.

  With her head still lowered, Honor asked quietly, “Is it that fat doctor?”

  More had to cover a smile with his hand. At Lent, a doctor friend of his father’s, a portly widower, had come to court the girl. More had been passing the open solar door and overheard them talking. She was deftly cooling the doctor’s ardor in a most original fashion—by grilling him rather mercilessly on the works of St. Jerome and St. Thomas Aquinas. The poor man fled without even staying to supper.

  “No,” More answered, amused. “The doctor has retreated from the field. But another hopeful has stepped into the breach.” He waited for some response, but she stood stubbornly silent. “Are you not even curious to know who it is?”