Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,17
for his mind would never be more than that of a young child. He had been a docile lad who had grown into a sweet-tempered man, and as he liked company better than anything and was no trouble, John had brought him from his lodgings in the country to live with us at Ely Place.
“Please let Robert do the lady Mary again, at least,” begged Guildford.
“Please,” echoed Jerome in his voice that always startled me, so much like John’s as it was.
I sighed. “Oh, very well. But only if he does the Duchess of Somerset again, too.”
***
“You are here to see the king, my lady?”
I nodded at Thomas Seymour, coming out of the king’s outer chambers at Hampton Court just as I was coming into them. “Yes. He summoned me. I hope nothing is wrong in Scotland.”
“Not that I know of,” Seymour said lazily. “Ned’s alive and well, as far as I know.”
“And my husband and sons? Have you any news of them?”
“No, but I imagine Ned would have told even me if there were any cause for concern. I daresay the king will tell you what you need to know.” Seymour bowed and hurried away.
“He could have been more forthcoming, don’t you think?” I asked my companion— Maudlyn Flower, one of the gentlewomen who served me. “But I suppose nothing can be so very wrong.”
King Edward awaited me in the chair where he received visitors, his feet dangling well above the floor. I dropped a curtsey. “Perhaps you have seen our uncle, my lady?”
Though I am a short woman, it was still necessary for me to take care when I arose that I did not look down at the king. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“He brought us some money,” said Edward cheerfully. “He’s always bringing us money. But did he tell you the news?”
I bit my lip. “No, Your Majesty. I hope things are well with us in Scotland?”
“We had a victory!” the king announced. He slid off his chair and waved me over to a map lying on a table. “Here, at a place called Musselburgh. We killed ten thousand Scots. My lord of Warwick was ambushed before the battle,” he added.
I froze.
“But he escaped,” the king assured me quickly. “Oh, I would have told you immediately if he had not! He charged at one of them—Dandy Carr—and chased him for twelve score at spear point. He would have run Carr’s horse straight through if his horse had been just a little slower. They must have very fast horses there.”
“My lord was not hurt, then.”
“No, no. The battle was joined the next day. See, my lady?”
I gazed at the map as the king recounted the battle with boyish gusto, my mind focusing only on the news that my John was safe.
Only when I was on my knees in my chapel, giving thanks for my husband’s safety, did it occur to me to wonder why Thomas Seymour was giving the king money.
6
Frances Grey
December 1547
I know you’re taking me into the chapel, Harry,” I protested, adjusting my blindfold. “There are those two steps. Where else could I be?”
“Patience, my dear, patience.” Harry led me forward a step or two, and I brushed against something that could only be a chapel pew. “There!”
Harry untied my blindfold, and I stared around me.
While I had been visiting friends, Bradgate’s chapel had been completely whitewashed. The images of saints that decorated the walls had been obliterated; the altar had been stripped of its finery. “Well? How do you like it?”
“It’s bare,” was all I could manage.
“Well, of course it’s bare,” Harry said reasonably. “All of that frippery gets in between us and the Lord.”
I turned my eyes again to the blank wall on my left. It had borne an image of the Virgin, commissioned by Harry’s grandfather, the first Marquis of Dorset, when he built Bradgate Hall in the last century. He must have found the best workman in Leicestershire for the task; perhaps he’d even chosen someone from London. Probably he’d come in regularly to check the progress of the work. His children and grandchildren had gazed at it countless times over the years as they squirmed in chapel; some had seen it when they were married or when their own children were christened here. And now with a brush stroke it had vanished, to be replaced by blankness. Bradgate was Harry’s ancestral home, not mine, but I felt as if I had been robbed of something. “It shall take some getting used to.”