The Queen's Rival by Diane Haeger Read Free Book Online Page B

ambition,” Elizabeth clarified.
    “I feel far too young to understand the ambitions of grown men,” Bess said as she began to unlace her gown.
    “Wait until you are here for a while. You will understand them well enough.”
    “Then what drives a man like him, do you think? A man who has been given access to the King of England? What would a man like him hope to gain?”
    “As much as he can, I suspect. Just like the rest of us,” Elizabeth pointedly replied. Bess sank wearily onto the bed beside her as Elizabeth twisted her head, changing the subject, and asked, “So then, did you complete the task we gave you?”
    “Of course. I have the article right here to prove it.”
    Elizabeth tipped her head. An incredulous smile broke across her small face. “You took away something?”
    “Only some scrap of cloth from beneath the bed, just to show for certain I was there.”
    “Gilly thought he saw spark enough in you that you might actually go through with it,” she said with a chuckle.
    Bess felt a surge of anger at the sound of Elizabeth’s laughter. “Oh, he did, did he?”
    “Gilly said he thinks that great beauty brings courage along with it, so he will be glad to know he was correct.”
    Bess sprang indignantly back to her feet. “Oh, will he?”
    “Oh no, do settle your tail feathers, Bess. It was all just a bit of fun.”
    “At my expense! What if I had been caught?”
    “You are far too clever for that. Even I could tell that from the first. You take after your mother, whom we all like a great deal.”
    Bess knew that flattering her mother was a ploy, but her homesickness allowed it to work predictably. “Do not do anything like that to me again,” she warned a little more tepidly.
    “It is a promise. Now then, what exactly did you fetch?”
    Bess held up the article then, looking at it herself for the first time. In the light she could see that it was a baby’s cradle blanket. The embroidered initial she had felt in the dark was not an H but an A sewn in gold thread with a crown embroidered above it. The A was clearly for Arthur, the king’s older brother, first husband of Queen Katherine. For a moment, both girls gazed at it in awe. The king’s bedchamber was not a place an infant’s cradle ever would have been placed or stored, so it had likely been secreted there intentionally—a link perhaps to a lost son or brother by this king or the last. Bess considered the romantic thought. It was a poignant reminder of the humanity and mortality behind the grandeur of the ruler Bess had yet to see or meet.
    “The women in the queen’s suite always speak of how close the brothers once were. Perhaps it remains there as a comfort and reminder,” Elizabeth offered, losing her smile and sounding, for a moment, almost like an adult.
    To have married his own brother’s widow must have brought a certain amount of guilt, and even a sense of betrayal, Bess thought, knowing well of the sibling bond between herself and George. She could not imagine George gone forever from her life, or what small token she might wish to keep as a reminder.
    “That is so sad,” Bess said softly.
    “Some whisper that the king’s marriage is cursed because he married Arthur’s wife, which in Leviticus the Bible expressly forbids, and that is why she has not yet been able to give him a living child. It is said he might well believe this himself.”
    “My father always says the marriage bond is the most important thing. I cannot imagine going outside of that.”
    “Here, there is very little fidelity. You shall see that soon enough,” Elizabeth warned.
    “So, do I pass the test from you and Master Tailbois?” Bess asked, changing the subject.
    They both glanced down at the baby’s cradle blanket she had taken from a king. “Indeed you do. Actually, for that, we should well call you our new leader,” Elizabeth said with a clever smile.

    Gil knelt and removed Wolsey’s lambskin riding boots from his thick, blistered