Rosamund looked about her. It was a small chamber with a corner fireplace in which a fire was now burning, warming the damp room. The walls were of linen-fold paneling. The well-worn floor of wide boards was darkened with age. There was a single lead-paned casement window looking out on an empty courtyard, above which she could see the blue sky of the late June day. The small courtyard itself was seasonless. Had she been a prisoner in this room she would have had absolutely no idea of the day, the month, or the time of year. There were but three pieces of furniture: a small square oak table and two chairs with high carved backs, each containing a single tired tapestry cushion of an indeterminate color and design. Rosamund sat down and waited. By now she was well used to waiting for Tudor monarchs, she thought to herself with a wry smile.
Finally a door she had not even noticed, for it was so well constructed and concealed, opened in one of the walls, and Henry Tudor stepped into the room. Had he gotten bigger? she wondered, until she realized that the design of his costume was meant to convey that very impression. Still, a man who stood well over six feet needed little else to make an impression. He looked straight at her with his small blue eyes as she came to her feet and made a deep curtsy.
“Well, madame, and what have you to say for yourself?” he opened the conversation forcefully.
“What would your majesty have me say?” Rosamund replied.
“Do not attempt to fence with me, madame!” he thundered. “You have not the skill for it.”
“I am also not gifted with the long eye, sire, and so you must be more specific in your queries of me,” Rosamund told him. She was not afraid. She should have been, but she was not. What was happening to her? What would happen if the king’s anger could not be stemmed?
Henry Tudor drew a deep breath and seated himself in one of the chairs. “Stand before me, Rosamund,” he said.
She moved to face him.
“Now kneel,” he commanded her.
Rosamund swallowed back her outrage and knelt before him.
“Now, madame, why did you go to Scotland?” he said.
“Because your majesty’s sister invited me, and as your majesty well knows, Queen Margaret and I are friends from our youth,” Rosamund responded.
“And why did you go to San Lorenzo, madame? It was my understanding that you disliked travel,” the king replied.
“I went because the Earl of Glenkirk asked me to go,” Rosamund said.
“He was your lover.” It was not a question.
“Aye, he was my lover,” Rosamund told the king quietly.
“I would not have expected such behavior from you,” Henry Tudor said primly.
“I was to confine my whoring, then, only to your majesty?” Rosamund snapped at him. The floor beneath her knees was hard, and she was becoming angry. For all he was her king, he was still a spoiled lad.
Henry Tudor jumped to his feet, towering over her as his big hand gripped her arm, yanking her up. “Do not try my patience, madame. You well know how dangerous I can become when provoked.” The blue eyes met her amber ones.
Rosamund pulled away from him. “Then, Hal, let us both sit down. I will freely answer any question you have of me, but this charade you attempt to play with me is both childish and hardly worthy of Great Harry.” Her gaze did not waver beneath his.
He motioned her impatiently to one of the chairs, seating himself in the other. “Do not forget I am your king,” he growled.
“I have never forgotten it, Hal.” He had not reprimanded her use of his name, and so she continued it.
“Richard Howard, my ambassador, saw you in San Lorenzo,” the king told her.
“I know,” Rosamund answered. “San Lorenzo is a tiny place, my lord, and there are no secrets there that can be kept for long. Lord Howard recognized my face and was told my name. He knew he had seen me before.”
“He said you lied to him when he asked if you knew him,” the king noted.
“Nay, Hal, I did not lie. He had seen me at court long ago, and I had seen him. But we had never been introduced, so we could hardly know each other, now, could we?”
The king emitted a short burst of laugher, then grew serious once again. “What was Lord Leslie doing in San Lorenzo? He had been my brother-in-law’s first ambassador there years ago. Why did he go back, madame?”
“When the earl and I first met at Stirling, Hal, something odd happened to us. We fell in love, if indeed you believe in love, but whatever happened between us happened. We could not bear to be parted. The Scots court, however, was hardly the place for us to carry on our liaison, any more than your court would have been the right place. It was cold and snowy that winter. The earl conceived the idea of taking me to San Lorenzo, where we might enjoy the warmth of the south and pursue our passion for each other.”
“You lived in the ambassador’s residence,” the king said suspiciously, still not convinced that her tale was completely innocent of deception.
“Aye, we did. It had been Patrick’s home once, and Lord MacDuff insisted that we make it our home. I saw no harm in it. Our apartments looked out over the town, a charming place whose buildings are all the many colors of the rainbow, Hal. We could view the blue sea from our terrace. We had a large bath set out upon the tiled terrace, and we bathed daily in the fresh air, beneath the warm sun. There were flowers in bloom in February! It was a paradise!” Rosamund’s face was alight with the memory.
“You were introduced to the duke,” the king said.
“He was an old friend of Patrick’s. His court is very informal, Hal. We visited several times, meeting a famed artist from Venice, a German countess, your own Lord Howard, and many others. Our servants fell in love there and were wed in a chapel within the cathedral by San Lorenzo’s bishop himself.”
“Lord Howard says this artist, a relation of the Venetian doge, painted you without garments,” the king accused, looking shocked.
“The portrait that hangs in my hall, Hal, is fully clothed. The maestro painted me as the lady defender of Friarsgate. He made my home a castle, which of course it is not. I am surrounded by a sunset. It is quite colorful,” Rosamund said, but then, because she realized the king was very well informed, added, “but he also painted me as a goddess. I wore a Greek chiton that left a shoulder and my arms bare. He vowed he wished to keep that painting for himself, which is why he also painted the other.”
“That portrait now hangs in the Great Hall of the Duke of San Lorenzo, madame! Lord Howard informs me that your naked limbs can be easily seen through the diaphanous draperies you have called a costume and that one of your breasts was quite bare!” Henry Tudor sounded outraged.
“What?” The surprise on Rosamund’s face convinced the king that her own tale was true, as far as she knew. “The maestro sold the goddess painting to the duke?”
Then she burst out laughing. “The duke, Hal, is a man of vast appetites where women are concerned. He would have enjoyed seducing me but that I would not have it. And the artist, as well. These men from the south are quite different from us, I fear. It took all my wits about me to prevent a disaster,” she concluded. Then she said, “My cousin tells me that Lord Howard is back in England. He is not a good ambassador, Hal. He is much too abrasive and rude. He quite irritated the duke.”
“When you returned in late spring you went back to my sister, did you not?” He ignored her remark about Richard Howard. It was not necessary Rosamund know that Duke Sebastian had sent him home to England for the very qualities Rosamund mentioned. It had been most embarrassing, especially as the duke had sent a message with Lord Howard saying he wanted no further English ambassador in San Lorenzo.
“Aye. I had promised Meg I would. She had been delivered then of her son,” Rosamund answered him. Let him ask what he would. She would volunteer nothing unless asked.
“The boy? He is truly healthy?” the king inquired.