The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [110]
“And Mary of Suffolk hated Anne Boleyn.…” I heard myself say.
“Indeed. She’d been vocal in her horror over Henry’s break with Rome and remained a staunch ally of Queen Katherine, who, while imprisoned under house arrest, was still very much alive. Mary had already given birth to two sons and two daughters; any living child of hers posed a threat, but one born in those precarious months while Anne awaited hers—well, let us say she had reason to fear Anne’s enmity. It was why she stayed away from court. Or it was the excuse she wanted everyone to believe.”
My hands hung limp at my sides, my dagger pointed at the floor.
“Then she died,” I said, without inflection.
“According to the rumor I heard, she died shortly after giving birth. She’d hidden her pregnancy from everyone, allegedly because she feared Anne would poison her. She was buried in haste, without ceremony. Henry didn’t display much grief; he was too excited about his queen’s impending confinement, as was everyone else. By the time Elizabeth was born, few remembered Mary of Suffolk had existed. In the next three years, her widower Charles Brandon—a man who embraced self-preservation—married his pubescent ward and sired two sons before his own demise. By then, Anne Boleyn had gone to the block and Henry had wed and lost Jane Seymour, his third wife, who gave him Edward, his coveted son. The king of course went on to wed three more times. In our world, nothing is as quickly forgotten as the dead.”
“And Mary’s last child?” I asked thickly. “What became of it?”
“Some said it was stillborn; others that it was hidden away at her dying request. Certainly, Charles of Suffolk never mentioned it—which he would have, had he known. His remaining son by Mary died the year after her; all he had left were daughters.”
“So he would have welcomed another son…?”
Cecil nodded. “Indeed. But he was abroad for most of the time before his wife’s demise, and by all accounts he and Mary were on difficult terms. Suffolk had supported the king’s quest to rid himself of Queen Katherine and marry Anne; Mary opposed it. Still, theirs was reputedly a love match, and he must have tried; she wasn’t so old that she could not conceive.… In any event, she hid her last pregnancy from him, giving out instead that she suffered from the swelling sickness. He probably never even suspected. It does beg the question of what was going through the unfortunate lady’s mind that she’d keep a child from her own husband.”
“You said she was afraid of Anne Boleyn,” I said, and I heard him step to me, so close we might have embraced. His face looked ancient, the marks of worry, of ceaseless statecraft and insomniac nights, engraved into his flesh.
“Maybe Anne wasn’t the only reason,” he said, and he started to reach out. Before he could touch me, I shifted away, though it felt more like lurching, so leaden were my limbs. The chamber closed in around us, shot through with random afternoon light and stark long shadows.
“How did you find out about me?” I asked abruptly.
“Entirely by coincidence.” His response was certain, subdued. “As I said, Henry the Eighth’s testament decreed that after his children and their heirs, his sister Mary’s issue stood next in line to the throne. So when I learned that the duchess had renounced her claim in favor of her daughter Jane Grey, I was surprised. Frances of Suffolk never renounced anything willingly in her life. Northumberland informed me she had done so in exchange for Guilford as a spouse for Jane, but not even he seemed convinced. I decided to investigate. It wasn’t long before I learned that Lady Dudley had threatened Frances with something altogether more interesting.”
I gave him a hollow smile. “Me.”
“Yes,” he said, “though I didn’t know exactly who you were at that time. I didn’t begin to put it together until I learned Lady Dudley had presented you to the duchess in the hall, where she whispered a comment about the mark of the rose. Now, that caught my attention: The Rose