Uncle shrugged.
“Who told her?” I shouted at him, on my feet once more. “You must have some idea!”
Grudgingly, he gave me a name. “I warrant it was Sir Richard Guildford. He was with the king in exile in Brittany, but he was in service to the countess originally.”
Harry’s father. The same Sir Richard Guildford who had written to his son that he wished to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land because he had a great sin on his conscience.
“He’s dead now,” Uncle said, “and so is the countess. But I am certain there are others who’d like to see our line end. Be very careful, Jane, when you return to court.”
I LEFT WALES the day after I heard my uncle’s story. Although I was convinced that he believed everything he’d told me, I was still uncertain as to how much of it was true. I could not understand why, if the countess had been responsible for my mother’s death, she had allowed my uncle to live. Surely, as a man, he posed more of a threat to the succession than any woman.
Uncle claimed that Henry VIII did not know he had a half brother. If that was true, why had he sent my uncle to Wales? At least an answer to that question was not hard to come by. Uncle had always been difficult to get along with, and the older he got, the more quarrelsome he became. He’d never been popular at court. Why wouldn’t the king seize on any excuse to send him away?
So, if King Henry did not perceive Sir Rowland Velville as a threat to the Crown, was anyone really trying to kill him? Was anyone trying to kill me? By the time I returned to Suffolk Place, I had convinced myself that neither one of us was in any danger. Too much drink had addled my uncle’s mind. The people who wanted him dead were figments of his imagination.
Traveling to Wales and back had taken well over a month. It was already the third week in April in the year of our Lord fifteen hundred and sixteen by the time I returned to Suffolk Place.
“Was your uncle any help?” Mary asked when she came to my chamber to welcome me from my journey. “Did he know why your mother left France?”
I shook my head, suddenly struck by the enormity of what I had learned. Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, although she was five years younger than I, was my aunt. The king was my uncle.
“A wasted journey, then. What a pity. You should have stayed here and been comfortable.”
“Has Queen Margaret arrived yet?” I asked. Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland…another aunt.
“She is expected to enter London on the third of May,” Mary said. “I wonder how much she will have changed.” Margaret had been fourteen the last time we’d seen her and Mary only eight.
I wondered if the two sisters would find they had much in common. They both had new babies, as did the queen. I supposed that would give them something to talk about. I doubted Margaret would have anything at all to say to me.
As Mary cheerfully continued to describe plans for the reunion of her siblings, I realized that my uncle’s secret was the one thing I could never share with her. Nor could I ever reveal his suggestion that the Countess of Richmond had been responsible for my mother’s death.
I’d spent much of my return journey and since thinking about that accusation. It was possible my uncle was right. The countess had been fully capable of doing whatever was necessary to reduce the number of potential claimants to the throne. She did, after all, orchestrate her son’s return to England and make sure he had sufficient allies to defeat King Richard III. She’d also arranged the marriage between her son and Elizabeth of York, to ensure that the succession would go unchallenged. If she had discovered that the king had another child, an older child, she might well have acted precipitously to eliminate that threat.
And Uncle was right. Sir Richard Guildford was the most likely person to have told her who Maman was when she was at Collyweston. A casual comment, perhaps. Not realizing that Maman had a twin brother, the countess had acted in haste to remove a potential threat. And then? Guilt? Regret? There was evidence of both in the countess’s sudden increase in religious fervor and Sir Richard’s pilgrimage. He’d have known he shared some of the blame.
I doubted I would ever know the full truth. Both Sir Richard and the countess were dead.
I responded absently to Mary’s comments while I considered Mother Guildford. She had gone out of her way to discourage my questions and make me think no one knew more than she was telling me. She had lied when she’d implied that Maman died of consumption. Did that mean she know Maman’s real heritage—and mine, too? Had she had a hand in the murder herself? Or had she only learned of it later from her husband?
I wanted to confront her, to demand the truth, but I knew better than to do such a foolish thing. She was a strong-willed woman. She’d never admit to any wrongdoing. She might even try to get rid of me, to protect her late husband’s reputation.
I could not tell anyone, I realized. My secret was too dangerous. My uncle and I might be in real danger if the truth came out.
Although my arm was still sore, it had mended adequately to allow me to return to Queen Catherine’s service a few days before Queen Margaret was scheduled to arrive. As soon as I was settled, I asked after Ivo Jumelle. Not because I thought he’d seen anything suspicious when I fell, but because I hoped he might have heard something more about Guy.
“The envoy he served has been recalled and took the young man away with him,” Harry Guildford told me.
“He was not here very long.” I stepped close to Harry, following the pattern of a complicated dance that was to be part of a masque to entertain Queen Margaret.
“Ran off in fear, no doubt, after hearing that King Henry is talking of another invasion of France.”
“Why? I had not heard that France has done anything to provoke an attack.”
“King Henry sees the new French king as a rival since they are so near in age and physical prowess. François acquitted himself well in his war in Italy. Now Henry is determined to prove himself the better commander.”
I thought that a very foolish reason for starting a war. Then it occurred to me that I might disguise myself as a soldier and travel to France that way. The possibility so distracted me that I faltered in the steps we were rehearsing.
Harry caught me around the waist and lifted me high. “Pay attention,” he cautioned me. “If one of us puts a foot wrong, we’ll all go tumbling down.”
I tried to concentrate, but it was difficult. I discarded the idea of dressing as a man, but only because I’d had a better idea. I’d thought of a way to persuade King Henry to send me home to Amboise. All I had to do was find a way to speak with him in private.
That would be a problem. The king could meet privily with anyone he wished if he chose to arrange the assignation. For me to whisk him behind an arras or into an empty antechamber would not be as easy. He was always surrounded by counselors, courtiers, or guards.
“By the saints, Jane!” Harry stopped the practice and waved the others away. “What ails you? If Bessie Blount were here, I’d bring her in to replace you even if it is the last moment.”
“She will be back soon enough,” I said. “In the meantime you must make do with me.” Bessie had left court to visit her mother, who was ailing, while I was in Wales. A pity, I thought. Her absence deprived me of the easiest means of access to the king.
Then it struck me. There was a way to get King Henry alone. I might not be able to enter the royal bedchamber in Bessie’s company, but I could contrive to be invited there in her place.
15
I considered trying to arrange a rendezvous with the king during a pavane or a galliard, but the movements brought partners together only briefly before drawing them apart again, making conversation difficult. I would flirt, then, I decided, but save my more devious machinations for the bowling green.