He shakes his head.
“Will they question me?” I ask.
He turns just slightly away from me, a cold shoulder. “Yes. They are bound to. If there is anything in the house—”
“What do you mean?” I am furious with fear.
“I don’t know!” he bursts out. “I don’t know! How would I know? I don’t hold with prophecies and predictions and long-lost kings. I don’t have giants in my family tree, like you Nevilles. I don’t have three suns in the sky like you Yorks. I am not descended from a water goddess who comes out of a river to mate with mortals! When your family was founded, no one had ever heard of us. When your uncles were on the throne, mine were quiet City men. I don’t know what you might have, what you might have kept from those times—a banner or a standard, a bead-roll or letter. Anything that shows your descent, anything that shows your royal blood, any prophecy that you once had the throne and will have it again. But whatever you have, your ladyship, clear it out and burn it. Nothing is worth the risk of keeping.”
The first thing I do is send a message to Geoffrey and tell him to go at once to Bisham and stay there till he hears from me, to speak to no one and to receive no one. He is to tell the servants that he is sick, he is to give out that it might be the Sweat. If I know that he is safe, then I can fight for my other sons. I send my Master of Horse to the Tower of London to discover who is behind those high gray walls, and what is being said about them.
I send one of my ladies-in-waiting to Ursula and tell her to take her little son and go to L’Erber and stay there until we know what we should do. I send my page boy to Arthur and say that I am coming to court at once, that I will see him there.
I send for my barge and have them take me downriver. The court is at Greenwich and I sit quietly in my seat at the back of the barge with a couple of my ladies at my side and compose myself to be patient as the high towers come into sight over the tops of the fresh green trees.
The barge ties up at the pier and the rowers make a guard of honor with their oars as I step onshore. I have to wait until they are assembled and ready, and then I walk through them with a smile, controlling my desire to run to the queen’s rooms. I walk slowly up the graveled path and hear the noise from the stables as half a dozen riders come in and shout for their grooms. A guard swings open the private garden door to the queen’s stair. I nod my thanks and go up, but I don’t hurry, and my breath is steady and my heartbeat regular when I get to the top.
The guards outside her door salute me and stand aside as I go in to see the queen settled in the window seat, looking out at the garden, a beautifully embroidered linen shirt in her hands, one of her ladies reading from manuscript pages, the others sitting around and sewing. I see the Boleyn girls and their mother, I see Lord Morley’s daughter Jane Parker, the Spanish ladies, Lady Hussey, half a dozen others. They rise to curtsey to me as I curtsey to the queen, and then she waves them away and I kiss her on both cheeks and sit beside her.
“That’s pretty,” I say, my voice light and indifferent.
She raises it up, as if to show me the detail of the black on white embroidery, so no one can see her lips as she whispers: “Have they taken your son?”
“Yes, Montague.”
“What’s the charge?”
I grit my teeth and manage a false smile, as if we were speaking of the weather. “Treason.”
Her blue eyes widen, but her face does not change. Anyone looking at us would think she was mildly interested in my news. “What does this mean?”
“I think it is the cardinal, moving against the duke: Wolsey against Buckingham.”
“I will speak with the king,” she says. “He must know this is baseless.” She hesitates as she sees my face. “It is baseless,” she says less certainly. “Isn’t it?”
“They say that he spoke of a curse on the Tudor line,” I tell her, my voice a thread of sound. “They say that a lady from your rooms spoke of a curse.”
She takes a little breath. “Not you?”
“No. Never.”
“Is your son accused of repeating this curse?”
“And my cousin,” I confess. “But, Your Grace, neither my sons nor my cousin George Neville have ever said or heard a word against the king. The Duke of Buckingham might be intemperate but he is not disloyal. If a great nobleman of this kingdom is going to be charged at the whim of an advisor, a man who is nothing more than one of the king’s servants, a man without birth or breeding, then none of us will be safe. There is always rivalry around the throne. But a loss of favor cannot lead to death. My cousin Edward Stafford is tactless; is he to die for it?”
She nods. “Of course. I will speak with the king.”
Ten years ago, she would have walked at once to his rooms and taken him to one side; a touch on his arm, a quick smile and he would have done what she told him. Five years ago she would have gone to his rooms, given him advice, and he would have been influenced by her opinion. Even two years ago she would have waited for him to come to her rooms before dinner and then told him the right thing to do and he would have listened. But now she knows that the king may be talking with the cardinal, he may be gambling with his favorites, he may be walking in the gardens with a pretty girl on his arm, whispering in her ear, telling her he has never, never desired a woman more, that her voice is like music, that her smile is like sunlight, and he has little interest in the opinions of his wife.
“I’ll wait till dinner,” she decides.
I sit with the queen until the king comes with his friends to escort her and her ladies to dinner. I plan to greet Arthur with a smile, whisper a warning, and meet with him later. But when the double doors are thrown open and Henry strides into the room, handsome, laughing, and makes his bow to the queen, Arthur does not stroll in behind him.
I curtsey, a smile pinned on my face like a mask, a cold sweat starting to trickle on my spine. They are all there: Charles Brandon, William Compton, Francis Bryan, Thomas Wyatt. Everyone whom I can think of is there, none of them missing, all laughing at some private joke that they swear they will tell when it is composed into a sonnet; but no Arthur Pole. My son is missing, and no one remarks on it.
One of the maids-in-waiting drops a book that she has been reading, and bends to pick it up. She makes a low curtsey to the king, the book clasped to her bodice, emphasizing her love of study and drawing the eye to the warm, inviting skin of her neck and breasts. I see dark hair shining under the French hood and the flash of a gold initial B with three creamy pearl drops tied low at her neck; but the king bows over his wife’s hand and does not notice her at all.
The ladies flutter into their order of precedence behind the queen. I see Mary Boleyn jostling, elbows to ribs with Jane Parker, but as I smile at them, though I look everywhere, I do not see my son Arthur, and I do not know where he is tonight.
Thomas More is waiting at the entrance to the dining room as the ladies and gentlemen of the court take their places, his fleshy face downturned, deep in thought. He will be waiting for his master the cardinal; he may be working on the case against my sons.
“Councillor More,” I say politely.
He turns with a start and sees me.
“I am sorry to interrupt your meditations. One of my sons is a scholar and I have seen him deep in thought, just like you. He scolds me if I interrupt him.”
He smiles. “I would hesitate before I interrupted Reginald’s thinking, but you are safe with me. I was daydreaming. But still, he should not scold his mother. A child’s obedience is a holy duty.” He smiles, as if he is amused at himself. “I keep telling my children this. It is true, of course, but my daughter accuses me of special pleading.”