“Would she agree to marry him?” Montague asks me.
Slowly, I shake my head, knowing that this destroys the plan. “She won’t defy her father. It’s too much to ask of her. She’s only seventeen. She loves her father, I taught her myself that his word is law. Even though she knows he has betrayed and imprisoned her mother, it makes no difference to a daughter’s obedience to her father. He is still king. She would never commit an act of treason against a rightful king, she would never disobey her father.”
“So shall I tell Chapuys no?” Montague asks me. “Is she trapped by her duty?”
“Don’t say no,” Geoffrey says quickly. “Think what we might be, think if we might return to the throne. Their son would be a Plantagenet, the white rose on the throne of England once again. And we would be the royal family once more.”
“Tell him it’s not possible yet,” I temporize. “I won’t even speak to her of it yet.” For a moment only, I think of my son coming home at last, coming home in triumph, a hero of the Church, ready to defend the Church in England, the princess, and the queen. “I agree, it is a good proposal. It is a great opportunity for the country and, quite unbelievably, a great restoration for us. But the time is not now, not yet. Not until we are released from our obedience to the king. We have to wait for the Pope to enforce his word. Not until Henry is excommunicated—then we are free to act. Then the princess is freed from her duty as a subject and a daughter.”
“That day must come,” Geoffrey declares. “I’ll write to Reginald and tell him to press the Pope. The Pope has to declare that no one shall obey the king.”
Montague nods. “He has to be excommunicated. It’s our only way ahead.”
BEAULIEU, ESSEX, AUTUMN 1533
John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Henry’s man through and through, a despised Lancastrian loyalist for generations, rides down the long avenue of trees, through the beautiful great gateway, and into the inner courtyard of Beaulieu with two hundred horsemen in light armor trotting behind his standard.
Princess Mary, beside me at the window that overlooks the courtyard, sees the armed men halting and dismounting. “Does he fear trouble on the road, that he rides with so many?”
“Generally, a de Vere brings trouble rather than meets it,” I say sourly, but I know that the roads are dangerous for the king’s officers. The people are sulky and suspicious, they fear the tax collectors, they fear the new officials who come to inspect the churches and the monasteries, they don’t cheer when they see the Tudor rose anymore, and if they see Anne’s badge—she is now showing a falcon pecking at a pomegranate to flaunt her victory over Queen Katherine—they spit on the road before her horses.
“I’ll go down to greet him,” I say. “You wait in your rooms.” I close the door and go slowly down the great stone stairs to the entrance hall, where John is tossing his hat on a table and pulling off his leather gloves.
“Lord John.”
“Countess,” he says, pleasantly enough. “Can I turn my horses out in your fields for the day? We won’t stay long.”
“Of course,” I say. “You’ll dine with us?”
“That would be excellent,” he says. The de Veres have always been great trenchermen. The family was in exile with Henry Tudor and came back at Bosworth to devour England. “I’ve come to see Lady Mary,” he says flatly.
I find that I am quite chilled to hear him call her that. As if by denying her name, he is announcing the death of the princess. I pause for a moment and give him a long, slow stare. “I will take you to Her Grace the Princess Mary,” I say steadily.
He puts a hand on my arm. I don’t shake it off, I just look at him in silence. He moves his hand awkwardly. “A word of advice,” he says. “To a very well-regarded, well-respected, beloved kinswoman of the King of England. One word of advice . . .”
I wait in icy silence.
“The king’s will is that she is known as Lady Mary. That is going to happen. It will be the worse for her if she defies him. I am here to tell her that she must obey. She is a bastard. He will guide her and care for her as his bastard daughter, and she will take the name Lady Mary Tudor.”
I feel the blood rush to my face. “She is no bastard and Queen Katherine was no whore. And any man who says so is a liar.”
He cannot face me with the lie on his lips and my face burning with anger. He turns away from me as if he is ashamed of himself, and he goes up to the presence chamber. I run after him; I have some mad thought of throwing myself in front of the door and barring him from saying the terrible words to our princess.
He enters without announcement. He gives her the smallest bow, and I rush in behind him too late to prevent him delivering his shameful message.
She hears him out. She does not respond when he addresses her as Lady Mary. She looks at him steadily, she looks through him with a dark blue gaze that in the end reduces him to repeating himself, to losing his thread, and then to silence.
“I shall write to my father, His Grace,” she says shortly. “You can carry the letter.”
She rises from her chair and sweeps past him, not waiting to see whether or not he bows. John de Vere, caught between the old habit of respect and the new rules, bobs down, bobs up, and finally stands awkwardly, like a fool.
I follow her to her privy chamber and see her take her seat at the table and draw a piece of paper towards her. She inspects the nib of a quill, dips it in the ink, wipes it carefully, and starts to write in her confident, elegant hand.
“Your Grace, think carefully before you write. What will you say?”
She glances up at me, chillingly calm, as if she had prepared herself for this, the worst thing that could happen. “I will tell him that I will never disobey his commands but that I cannot renounce the rights which God, Nature, and my own parents have given me.” She gives a little shrug. “Even if I wanted to step aside from my duty, I cannot do so. I was born a Tudor princess. I will die a Tudor princess. Nobody can say differently.”
BEAULIEU, ESSEX, NOVEMBER 1533
Montague comes to Beaulieu, riding through a dark day of mist and freezing rain, with half a dozen men around him and no standard showing.
I greet him in the stable yard when they clatter in. “You come disguised?”
“Not exactly disguised, but I don’t mind being obscure,” he says. “I don’t think I’m spied on, or followed, and I’d like it to stay that way. But I had to see you, Lady Mother. It’s urgent.”
“Come in,” I say. I leave the grooms to take the horses and Montague’s men to find their own way into the hall, where they can get mulled ale against the cold weather. I lead my son up the small stairs to my privy chamber. Katherine and Winifred, my granddaughters, and two other ladies are seated in the window, trying to catch the last of the light on their sewing, and I tell them they can leave it aside and go and practice their dance in the presence chamber. They curtsey and leave, very pleased to be sent to dance, and I turn to my son.
“What is it?”
“Elizabeth Barton, the Maid of Kent, has disappeared from Syon Abbey. I’m afraid she may have been taken by Cromwell. He’s certain to ask her to name those friends of the queen that she has met. He’s certain to try to make it look like a plot. Have you seen her at all since the time that I brought her to you?”
“Once,” I say. “She came with Cousin Henry’s wife, Gertrude Courtenay, and we prayed together.”
“Did anyone see you together?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“We were in the chapel at Richmond. The priest was there. But he would never give evidence against me.”