By His Majesty's Grace

“Yes, of course,” Isabel said, swooping upon her younger sister to give her a swift hug in passing. Marguerite had wanted to be a nun as a girl, had almost become a novice during their time spent being schooled at the convent near Graydon Hall. She had walked the long stone corridors with her hair tucked into a wimple and a breviary in her hand, rather like the king’s mother, Lady Margaret.

The urge did not survive her first infatuation, which happened to be with a French man-at-arms who served their stepbrother. It had been a virulent attachment, but was cut short when she discovered he had bad breath caused by a rotted tooth. She was still quiet, pious and pessimistic, unless the subject under discussion had to do with men. She could be irreverent enough then, though inclined to credit any male in knight’s clanking armor with sterling and noble qualities.

The three of them—Isabel, Cate and Marguerite—were very alike in appearance, all possessed of quantities of golden-brown hair, a little lighter in Cate’s case, a little darker in Marguerite’s. Cate was taller by an inch or so than Isabel, and Marguerite that much shorter. Where Isabel’s eyes gleamed with varying shades of green, however, Cate’s were the rich blue of an autumn sky and Marguerite’s as brown and sparkling as good English ale. Their features were regular, though Cate’s eyes had something of an impish cat’s tilt to them, and Marguerite had dark, slashing brows that could turn her slightest frown into a scowl.

Though Isabel and Cate were slender of form, Marguerite had not quite lost her childhood roundness. They could all still fit into the upright armor chest at Graydon, however, their secret hiding place from the wrath of their stepfather when they were children. They knew this because it had sometimes been necessary to avoid their stepbrother’s rages, as well. Treated as annoying dependents in spite of the rich inheritance of lands and keeps received from their true father, held as less important by far than Graydon’s hounds or hunting hawks, they had banded together from childhood for protection and support. Isabel’s wedding journey had been the first time in their lives that they had been apart for more than a few hours.

Their days had been spent in isolation at Graydon Hall and its environs. That was until Henry VII came to the throne. The king had soon sent to command their presence at court, in company with dozens more like them. The royal treasury had been depleted by war and swift means were required to fill it. More, Henry had need of lands and titles to assure the loyalty of those around him. Naming the unmarried women and widows throughout the kingdom as his wards was an ideal solution. He could take possession of the income from their estates, arrange suitable marriages for payment of a reasonable bride price or, at his discretion, accept a handsome recompense to allow them to avoid matrimony.

Isabel had not been given the last choice. She could only suppose it was because she, with her portion of her father’s wealth, was Henry’s idea of an appropriate prize for his companion in arms.

Who he might consider deserving of Cate’s and Marguerite’s dowries and their hands was still in doubt. They awaited his decision while putting their trust in the curse.

“Graydon returned with you?” Cate asked, continuing at Isabel’s nod. “He must be laughing up his sleeve at the turn of events.”

“As you say. He was quite blithe on the return journey. I heard him humming as he rode.”

“Perhaps he will speak to the king,” Marguerite said, “saying we are too dangerous to be given in wedlock.”

Their stepbrother, having grown up thinking of the vast estates inherited by Isabel and her sisters as his own fiefdom, had been enraged at the idea of losing control of it. He had stormed up and down Graydon Hall, cursing the laws of consanguinity, which prevented him from marrying one of them to preserve at least a portion of it—as his stepsisters, marriage between them was forbidden by the church as surely as if they had been blood sisters. Rather than remain at Graydon while the three of them disported themselves at court, he had journeyed with them to better keep them under his thumb. As the weeks and months passed, however, he seemed to grow accustomed to the idea that they would marry. He was even heard to say that giving up his wardship was a gesture of loyalty to the crown which would redound to his benefit. Falling in with a handful of other malcontents, he spent his time gaming and hunting, drinking and wenching. Isabel could only be glad that he was not expending his energy on more dangerous pastimes, such as plotting sedition.

“Always expecting a way out of dire straits,” she teased with a bright look for her younger sister as she lifted her hair and ran a cool cloth over the back of her neck. “You would never agree, I suppose, that we may bend circumstances to our own desires?”

“As to that, you’ve managed it for us often enough, dear Isabel. Take the way you made Graydon believe it his idea that we should be taught by the nuns, a most marvelous escape.” Marguerite caught the edge of her veil, chewing on a corner in a habit from childhood. “But was this the same? I mean, was it also a marvelous escape?”

“Yes, how did this Braesford strike you as a husband?” Cate demanded. “What was he like?”

“Were you glad or sorry to be whisked away before the wedding?” Marguerite added.

“We demand to know all!”

Isabel looked from one sister to the other, trying to decide how to answer. It seemed important, for some reason, to be fair.

“He is an interesting man, and a strong one,” she said finally. “It isn’t difficult to see how Henry came to reward him for his service to the crown.” She turned away, rummaging for a clean shift in her trunk, which had been set at the foot of the bed.

“That’s all very well, but what did he look like?” Marguerite asked with some asperity. “Was he handsome? Did he live up to the description given you before you left? Was he the image of knighthood?”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“No, but surely you can find more to say than that he’s strong and deserving!” Cate protested.

Isabel made no answer as her serving woman swept into the room at that moment, bringing with her a gown of gold velvet that she had taken to the kitchens to steam away its wrinkles. Gwynne, who had looked after them since they were children, as she had looked after their mother before she died, was greeted with nearly as many hugs and exclamations as Isabel had been given. When things had quieted again, and Gwynne was lacing up the back of the gold velvet over Isabel’s clean linen shift, Cate gave the serving woman a saucy look. “Saw you this bridegroom of our sister’s, dear Gwynne?”

“Aye, that I did.” The woman tugged the laces tighter, so Isabel inhaled with a gasp.

“And what did you think of him?”

“’Tisn’t my place to think.”

“But truly, you must have noticed something about him.”

“A fine, braw gentleman. Big.”

“Big?” Cate turned a gleaming gaze on Isabel.

“Welladay, then,” she said, rolling her eyes in mock annoyance. “He is tall and well made, powerful as a man must be who has survived tournaments and battles. He’s actually well-spoken, as befits a companion of Henry’s years in Brittany. I should warn you that he speaks French as well as the king, so beware of attempting to talk over his head. But you may see for yourselves. He returned with me, or rather I with him.” She went on to tell them something of the journey back to Westminster, though leaving out the disturbing few moments spent with Braesford inside the litter.

Marguerite heaved a sigh. “If Braesford is here, then the curse hasn’t provided a true escape. It must do better.”

Isabel’s lips twisted a little. “With any luck, he may be confined to the Tower for years.”

“Oh, no, don’t say that!” Marguerite was the most tenderhearted of the three, the one who picked up baby birds fallen from the nest and carefully returned them, rescued kittens entangled in vines, bandaged the knees and running sores of the street urchins who clustered at Graydon Hall’s back door waiting for the scraps she brought from the kitchen. She could barely stir beyond the palace wall now without a half-dozen scabrous tots clinging to her skirt, calling her their angel. No doubt she was destined to be some great lord’s wife, overseeing the welfare of the people of his villages, succoring the aged and the ill and intervening with her husband to better their lot.

“I don’t mean it, of course,” Isabel assured her at once, which was true enough. There was something about Braesford that made the thought intolerable. “I would not wish such a fate on any man, only…”

“Only you don’t want to marry him,” Cate finished for her with ready empathy darkening the blue of her eyes. Marguerite said nothing, only clasping her hands in her lap with a pained expression on her face.

“Him, or any other man,” Isabel said in instant agreement.

“Do you think him guilty? Could he have destroyed this newborn on the orders of the king?”

Isabel gave Cate a sharp look. It was a question that had occupied her mind often during the past few days. “Why would you think so? Have you heard something in my absence?”

“Not exactly, but Henry has been concerned for the queen’s health. I heard one of her ladies-in-waiting say that he and his mother are fretting her past bearing. They worry if she walks out, worry if she stays in, worry if she eats too much, worry if she eats too little. Her constitution is not strong, they say, and he depends on her to provide his heir.”

Isabel made no answer. They well knew it was the duty of a queen consort to produce small princes to inherit the throne and princesses to cement relationships with other courts and countries. Some said it was her only duty.

“He would be greatly displeased if anything happened to interfere,” Cate went on. “He might consider suppressing any whisper of a child born to his mistress, here so near the queen’s time, as being in the best interests of the crown.”

Gwynne, twitching folds of velvet into place about Isabel, spoke in a quiet mutter. “The soothsayers, so I was told just now, have promised the king the babe will be a prince.”

“I’ve heard it, as well,” Marguerite said.

“Indeed.” Cate gave a light shrug, as if it explained everything.

Mayhap it did, Isabel thought. Most men wished to have a son to carry on their name and their bloodline. For a king, it was paramount. Moreover, piety and superstition went hand in hand everywhere, but particularly at court—to pray on bended knee one hour, and visit the astrologer the next, was not uncommon. Henry could easily believe, at one and the same time, that he ruled by God’s might and that the gender of his child could be foretold. If he thought the unborn heir to the throne was in danger, there was little he would not do to protect him.

If that were the case, however, what did it mean that he had hauled Braesford to court to answer a charge of murder? Was it mere lip service to the rule of law, a show to quiet the whispers of murder? Or did Henry really intend to execute him for carrying out an order he himself had given? Isabel could not be sanguine either way, not if it meant she was betrothed to a man who could have killed a newborn child.

At that moment, a quiet knock fell on the door. Gwynne moved stiffly to draw it open.

Braesford stood on the other side. He bowed as Isabel moved forward to stand beside Gwynne.

“Your pardon, Lady Isabel,” he said in deep, measured tones. “I would not disturb your rest, but we are summoned before the king, you and I. He awaits us in his Star Chamber.”

Rand was more than a little conscious that he and Isabel had been given no time to eat before the audience with Henry. He felt lucky that time had been allowed for bathing and a change of raiment. The concession had been made for Isabel’s sake, he was almost certain. Had he been alone, he would have been ordered into the king’s presence while tired, hungry, stinking of sweat and horse, and filthy from days of travel. Henry was not a patient man.

Rand had sent to ask that Isabel be excused from the audience. It was not mere concern for her welfare. He would not, for pride’s sake, have her witness what might be his humiliation and chastisement. In addition, she could become privy to events and circumstances that might be dangerous for her to know. She was too much the novice at court intrigue for such matters.

His request was denied. Henry required to see both of them, and that’s all there was to it.

Together, they navigated the endless gateways, arcaded courts and connecting rooms that led to the king’s private apartments. He escorted her with her hand upon his wrist. Her features were composed as she walked beside him, but her fingers burned him like a series of small brands.

The so-called Star Chamber was a long hall hung with paneled walls that were softened here and there by hangings woven in biblical scenes, and featured a lofty, barrel ceiling painted with gold stars against a dark blue ground. It was here that Henry met with his most trusted councilors to mete out justice on matters of less than public nature. The king stood at a window as they entered, a tall man with a narrow face, flat yet sensual lips and forbidding mien. He was dressed in shimmering gray silk damask over a white silk shirt, with black hose and black leather boots. In token of the confidential nature of their audience, no crown sat upon his long, fair hair, but only a gray wool hat with a turned-up brim pinned by gold rosettes.

As they were announced, Henry left the woman and two men with whom he had been in consultation. Striding across the chamber with a slender white greyhound at his heels, he seated himself on the heavy chair—cushioned and canopied with satin in his official colors of green and white—which rested on a low stone dais at the far end of the room. Lounging at his ease with the dog at his feet, he waited as they came toward him.

“We are glad to see you finally arrived,” he said as he accepted their obeisance and waved them to a less formal stance. “We trust the journey was not arduous?”

“If so, Your Majesty, it was due only to our haste in answering your command,” Rand replied. He could not quite accustom himself to Henry’s use of the royal plural after years of far less formal usage in exile. He often wondered that Henry had fallen into it so naturally.

“Yet you have nothing to fear from it, we hope?”

The king meant to get directly to the point, Rand saw with a frown. It did not bode well for an easy end to the business. “Not in the least.”

A small silence fell. Rand glanced quickly at the others who had moved to join them, standing on either side of Henry’s makeshift throne. The lady was Henry’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, Duchess of Richmond and Derby, a petite and rather stern figure in her usual nunlike black gown and gable-top headdress with white bands around her face. Her nod of private greeting for him was a token of their many years of working together for Henry’s sake. Next to her was the squat shape of John Morton, former bishop of Ely and now chancellor of England. Beyond him was Reginald Bray, a Norman also faithful in the service of the duchess who had recently been appointed chancellor of County Palantine and the duchy of Lancaster. Not one of them smiled.

“I have nothing at all to fear,” Rand repeated firmly, “being at a loss for the cause of the charge against me.”

Henry pressed his lips together for an instant before making a small gesture of one hand. “You recently entertained a guest sent to you for security and succor in her confinement for childbirth. We are told she is no longer with you. Have you knowledge of this lady you would wish to impart to us?”

Sick dread shifted inside Rand at the pronouncement. He felt Isabel stir beside him, but could spare no attention to discover what she made of the charge.

“Unfortunately not, sire,” he replied in tones as even as he could make them. “The lady remained with me for seven weeks and was delivered of her child in due time. When last I set eyes upon her, she was healthy and hearty and on her way to you.”

“To us?”

“Under the guard of your men-at-arms sent to escort her to a manse described as a reward for her travail.”

The king frowned upon him. “Take care what you say, Braesford. We sent no guard.”

Beside Rand, Isabel drew a hissing breath. He could hardly blame her, for he felt as if a battering ram had thudded into his stomach. Glancing down, he saw her eyes were wide and her soft carmine lips parted, though she instantly composed her features to unconcern again as she met his gaze.

She was every inch an aristocrat this evening, he saw, standing with regal pride in a gown of some dark gold velvet almost the same shade as her hair, and which revealed an edging of her chemise that was embroidered in gold thread at the neckline and her sleeve ends. Her cap was the same, as were the edges of her veil, which came down to her elbows. His chest swelled with an odd pride at the fact that she stood at his side, however reluctantly.

“Upon my honor, sire, a troop of men came for her,” he answered at last.

“And the babe?”

“Went with her, of course, held in her arms. I would have sent to let you know of their departure, but the message brought by the captain of your guard forbade communication for discretion’s sake. Besides, I thought you knew already.”

“Yes. We understand what you mean to say. Nevertheless, we have had another account from one who watches over the northern section of our realm. It adds to a rumor reported to us by a second source.”

The king paused, his gaze inscrutable. Rand, meeting the pale blue eyes, searching the long, square-jawed face with its small red mole near the mouth, felt his heart bang against his ribs. “If I may ask,” he said after an interminable moment, “what would this rumor be?”

Henry sat forward, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair. “On the night this lady went into labor, she encountered difficulties. You sent for a midwife familiar with such complications. Do we have it correct thus far?”

“Indeed, sire.”

“The midwife arrived and the child was delivered while you remained close to make certain all was well. In fact, you were in the same room. Is this not so?”

Rand inclined his head in acquiescence, though the dread of where this might be heading was like a lead weight inside him.

“The midwife, a woman of middle years but with no problem with her eyesight, swears that a girl child was born in due time. She was perfect, in every particular, and cried lustily as she came into the world. The midwife swears that you, Sir Randall Braesford, immediately took the child and left the birthing chamber with it, walking into the next room and closing the door. She says that during the considerable time while she made the new mother comfortable and cleared away the signs of birth, the child was never heard to cry again.”

“Young Madeleine, as her mother named her, quieted as I held her,” Rand began, but stopped at a regal gesture for silence.

“We are not done,” Henry said with precision. “It seems the midwife was not permitted to remain with the lady, but was given a generous reward and hustled away as soon as her job was complete. And she claims that, as she went away, she recognized the stench of burning flesh from the rooms she had just left behind.”

Isabel gave a small cry and put a hand to her mouth. The king’s mother looked ill, while Morton and Bray stood in grim-faced condemnation. Rand had to swallow on bile before he could speak.

“No! A thousand times, no!”

“You deny the charge.”

“On my honor, I burned no child,” he insisted. “I cannot say whether the midwife lied or merely misunderstood what she saw and heard, but Mademoiselle d’Amboise’s infant daughter was asleep in my arms when the midwife mounted pillion behind my man and rode away. The child suckled at her mother’s breast later. She was well and most decidedly alive when she left Braesford. This I swear on God’s holy word and the wings of all his angels.”

“Nevertheless, we have heard nothing from Mademoiselle Juliette since you sent to inform us that she had been delivered of a daughter. She has not appeared in her usual place, has not been seen since she entered the gates at Braesford. Where, then,” the king ended with quiet simplicity, “is the lady now?”

It was an excellent question. Rand wished he had the answer. He swallowed, made a helpless gesture with one hand. “I can’t begin guess, my liege. All I can say is that a mounted guard of men-at-arms came and took her away.”

“They had orders, we presume? You did not give the lady and her child up without a written directive?”

“I was shown a scroll with your signature and seal,” he replied with a short nod.

“You knew the captain of this guard?”

“I didn’t, no. But as you surely understand, sire, I’ve spent many years beyond England’s shores and no few months away from court. Not all your officers and men-at-arms are familiar to me.”

“Nor to us,” Henry said drily. “But why would anyone mount such an elaborate and mysterious charade?”

Rand opened his mouth to speak, but the king’s mother was before him.

“It seems clear the intent is evil,” she said, her soft, even tones in stark contrast to her words. “The purpose can only be to embroil the crown in an affair with a whiff about it of the dead princes in the Tower.”

“Yes.” Grim acceptance sat on Henry’s face.

It was a pertinent thought. Given the shaky start to Henry’s reign, and his tenuous claim to the throne, anything which identified him with the murder of Edward IV’s young sons could bring on a groundswell of contempt that might well harden into opposition. In the right hands, it could even become grounds for blaming that three-year-old murder of the princes, if such it had been, on him, as well. Though he had been out of the country at the time, the members of his faction, including those ringleaders now in the room, had not. They could therefore be blamed for carrying out the deed in his name.

“Another purpose could be to acquire a hostage against future need,” Isabel said in clear suggestion.

Rand swung his head to stare at her in his surprise that she would speak for him. She met his gaze squarely, though a flush rode her cheekbones. The acceptance in the gray-green depths of her eyes made his heart throb against his breastbone. Turning back almost at once, he spoke in amplification of her thought. “Certain powers in Europe might be glad of such leverage, should they require allies in the conflict within the region.”

“Or it may simply be a matter of ransom,” the chancellor of England said, rubbing the extra chin that hung below his jaw.

Quiet fell in which could be heard the distant clanging of Angelus bells. Sunset was upon them. Though the long twilight of summer lingered beyond the tall windows of the room, it was dim inside the palace’s stone walls. A candle guttered on its wick, and Rand was abruptly aware of the scents of beeswax, perfume and sweat from Morton’s heavy ecclesiastical garments. He breathed with a shallow rise and fall of his chest as he waited for Henry’s pronouncement.

“We must not be hasty,” the king said at length. “We will send out men to search suitable properties where Mademoiselle Juliette may be held. If she is found, and the child with her…”

“I beg the privilege of joining the search,” Rand said, speaking past the relief that clogged his throat as Henry paused. “No one could have reason to look quite as hard or as long as I.”

“Your eagerness and promise of diligence do you credit, but it cannot be allowed.”

“I’ve given my pledge, and would not break it. Nor would I break faith with you, sire.”

“We are aware. Still, the matter is delicate. Say you are correct, and the lady is being held against her will. What is to prevent those who have her from ending her life the instant you are sighted? She would be dead to us and unable to uphold your story, while you would be conveniently at hand to take the blame. More, the rumor which came finally to us is rife at court, so we were forced to make the charge and bring you here for this inquiry. We have also heard whispers that you might be killed in ambush to prevent any denial of it. It is this last possibility that caused us to send so swiftly after Lady Isabel, instructing that you both be brought under our protection.” Henry shook his head. “No, you will remain near us, Sir Rand. Besides, it would be unseemly for a new-made husband to be seen searching high and low for a woman not his bride.”