She’d been fascinated by her brother’s friend ever since.
Longueville and Guy had just left to wash and change their clothing when a great shout went up outside the tennis play. A messenger in the queen’s livery appeared a moment later, bearing a letter to the Lady Mary from Queen Catherine. She did not have to read it to know there had been an English victory. All around us people were cheering as the news spread.
“Our army engaged the Scots at a place called Flodden,” Mary said as she skimmed the letter. “Queen Catherine herself was not on the battlefield, but she claims the triumph as her own.”
We’d heard already how Catherine had inspired the troops. Soldiers had joined her cavalcade all along the way north, swelling ranks that had once been outnumbered by the Scottish invaders. Pride in my countrymen and my queen filled me with a fierce joy…until I saw Mary’s face change. Tears welled in her eyes, although she did not permit them to fall.
“What is it?” I stepped closer, shielding her from prying eyes.
“King James the Fourth of Scotland is dead.”
I thought at once of Margaret, Mary’s sister and my one-time playfellow. The king of Scotland was her husband. His death left her a widow at twenty-three. Would she grieve for him? Given what I knew of Margaret, and the reports that had come out of Scotland over the years, she would be as upset by her loss of influence as by James’s death. Scotland had a new king now, James V, Margaret’s son. The boy was still an infant. The country would have to be ruled by a regent for many years to come.
Mary’s breath caught as she read on. “Catherine lists half the nobility of Scotland here.”
“Prisoners?”
“Dead. Killed in the battle.”
I stared at her in shock. Noblemen were supposed to be captured and held for ransom. I’d believed that the French admiral who had butchered Lord Edward was an exception, but it seemed the English generals could be just as brutal.
“Catherine has ordered James’s body embalmed and sent to Richmond Palace,” Mary whispered. “She writes that she plans to send James’s blood-stained coat to Henry as proof of how good a steward she has been for his realm in his absence.”
I could imagine King Henry’s reaction to that. He’d think she was trying to belittle his own accomplishment. She’d killed a king—his sister’s husband. All he’d done was capture a duke.
Sickened by the reports of carnage, and by the pleasure most people seemed to take in them, I wanted nothing more than to retreat from public view. It was not to be. The Lady Mary was expected to speak to the crowd gathered within the Tower precincts. She and all her household had to appear to rejoice at the news of England’s great victory over the Scots.
6
The night after we received word of the Battle of Flodden, the Lady Mary suffered from nightmares. The next night, she ordered me to keep her company. It was not uncommon for one of her ladies to sleep with her for warmth, but what she wanted from me was distraction.
Closed into the high, curtained bed, the covers pulled up to our chins, we were as private as anyone could ever be at court. In the room beyond, several more of her women slept on pallets on the floor. If we spoke too loudly, we would be overheard.
“I do not wish to think of blood and battle,” the princess said. “Tell me what you have learned from your French friend.”
I hesitated, uncertain it would be wise to admit that my mother had been thought capable of killing a king. I did not believe for a moment that she had done so, but the royalty of any country are bound to be sensitive about such matters.
Mary pouted. “I thought we were friends. You can trust me to keep your confidences.”
I lay on my back, staring up at the brocade ceiler over our heads. “It appears that my mother wished to disappear. She spirited me out of France and somehow the rumor started that she and I had both died after leaving Amboise. In truth, we came here to England to begin a new life.”
“Anyone would prefer England to France.” Mary sounded smug.
“What troubles me is that I do not know why we had to hide where we were going. Maman promised me that she would explain, but she died before she could keep her word.”
“Is there no one else you can ask?”
“My uncle must know something of her reasons, but he is with King Henry. It could be months yet before I have the opportunity to talk to him.”
As we’d had reports of the war with Scotland, so, too, had we received news of King Henry’s campaign against the French. After the battle in which the duc de Longueville had been captured, the English had gone to Lille, where they were entertained by Archduchess Margaret, the regent of the Netherlands. Diplomacy had replaced combat, and among the matters being discussed was a date for the Lady Mary to consummate her marriage to Charles of Castile. His title might come from a Spanish kingdom, but Charles himself had been raised by the Archduchess of Flanders. She was his aunt, the sister of that same King Philip who had once visited England. Charles had another aunt, too—our own Queen Catherine.
“Is there no one else who knew your mother when she first arrived?” Mary asked. “She was one of my mother’s ladies, was she not?”
“Yes, for a few months before she died.” My voice was flat, hiding the turmoil inside me.
“A few weeks is long enough to make friends. Oh! I know! You must talk to Mother Guildford. Do you not remember? Before she took charge of my household, she was in Mother’s service. She must have known your maman.”
I grimaced, thinking my expression hidden, but Mary knew me too well.
“Stop making faces. Mother Guildford is exactly the person you need. She has an excellent memory and she knows everyone. She should. Before she was in my mother’s household, she served my grandmother.”
“Which one?”
“Father’s mother, the Countess of Richmond.”
Perhaps, I thought, that was where Mother Guildford acquired her sour temperament. I remembered the countess as being irascible on her best days, and she had always seemed to go out of her way to make me feel inferior…when she took notice of me at all. But Mary was right. Mother Guildford was the most likely person to remember who had befriended a newcomer at court some fifteen years earlier.
Two days later, accompanied by a groom, I set out on horseback for Mother Guildford’s little house near the Blackfriars’ Priory, in London. She lived there in strained circumstances. Her husband’s death in Jerusalem on pilgrimage had left her deep in debt. Her only income, so her son Harry had told me, came from fifty marks a year in dower rights and the rent Charles Brandon paid to live in what had once been his uncle’s house in Southwark, the London suburb on the south side of the Thames. No one seemed to know why, but Sir Thomas Brandon had willed the property to the widow of his old friend Sir Richard Guildford. Perhaps he had felt sorry for her.
Mother Guildford received me in a small parlor at the upper end of the hall. It smelled of cedar and the strong, unpleasant odor of gout wort. “Why have you come now?” she asked. “It cannot be for the pleasure of my company or you would have found time to visit me long since.”
Time had wrought few changes in the former lady governess. She was more irascible, it was true. And her hair that had once been brown had more gray and new lines had appeared around her eyes and mouth. Otherwise she was still the same forceful woman I remembered from my youth. She had just entered her fiftieth year.
“I thought you might wish to hear the news from court,” I said from my perch atop a low Flemish chest. She was ensconced in the room’s only chair.
“I am not without friends! And I have eyes to see and ears to hear.” She gestured toward an open octagonal window that took up most of the gable end of the room. “No one could have missed the shouts and huzzahs and ringing bells that celebrated England’s victory over the Scots.”