The Boleyn Deceit: A Novel (Ann Boleyn Trilogy) Read online

  Elizabeth sat and waved Dr. Dee back to his chair. Minuette sat next to her, uncharacteristically silent. She had been less than enthusiastic about this idea, which surprised Elizabeth. Usually Minuette was the first to embrace the new and entertaining.

  Upon examination, John Dee looked like many a scholar or clerk, with his neatly pointed beard and unostentatious clothing. His eyes were deep and thoughtful and steady and he met her gaze without flinching. She liked those who were not cringingly cowed by her—but best not let him take too many liberties.

  “Dr. Dee,” she said, looking significantly at the leather portfolio that lay between them on the table, “you are aware that it is treason to tell a king’s future.”

  An irrelevant point. It was William who had commanded this private audience, William who had run with the idea of seeing what lay in his stars. Her brother was afraid of nothing, certainly not his future. But casting charts was legally forbidden for royalty, as it might be used as a pretext for rebellion.

  Dr. Dee was no fool to fall into such an easy trap. “I do not foretell the future, Your Highness. I interpret the heavens, which is to say, I translate a very little of what God himself has laid in store. And what could God have in store for our good king but glory?”

  Would he lie? Elizabeth wondered. She didn’t think he was an open fraud—even if Northumberland would fall for that, Robert Dudley certainly wouldn’t. But it took subtlety to tell a king what he did not wish to hear without making him angry. How much would Dee avoid saying? Or was William truly charmed, with a lifetime of good fortune inscribed indelibly in the heavens?

  The door was shoved wide and William strode in, a little the better for good cheer, followed by Dominic dressed in all black and looking more than ever like a shadow ready to wrest the monarch from danger at any moment.

  William went straight to Minuette. Bending low over her chair, he kissed her hand in a lingering and proprietary fashion. Just before it would become uncomfortable for the rest of them, he released her and turned to the visitor.

  “Dee!” he said. “Welcome to court. We are always glad to reward those who are useful to us.”

  No one could have missed the subtext, thought Elizabeth. Tell me what I want to hear, and you’ll be rewarded.

  Minuette had brightened with the men’s entrance. “Isn’t this thrilling, to discover what our futures hold in store?” She smiled at William (who laughed), then at Dominic (who did not). “Who is to be first?” she asked.

  William dropped into the chair next to hers. “You, sweetling, if you wish. What better way to begin, then, with the stars of the brightest woman at court?”

  Elizabeth caught the look that John Dee shot at William before dropping his eyes discreetly. Damn, she thought. He may be young, but he is no fool. And that’s all we need—someone leaking word of how Will behaves with Minuette in private.

  She looked at the one person whom she knew was as concerned with secrecy as she was. Though Dominic had never spoken to her of William’s romantic agenda, he radiated disapproval. Now Dominic fixed William with his eyes as though sorely tempted to tell him to behave himself.

  As though that had ever succeeded.

  Dee cleared his throat and opened the folio. On the top page Elizabeth saw a large circle divided into twelve sections, some of them blank while others contained mathematical and astrological symbols. She knew that each chart would be different, based on the hour and place of their individual births. Despite her wariness, her interest flared as John Dee focused on Minuette. There was something new in his eyes, something that made Elizabeth sharpen her attention and think: This is a man who knows things.

  “Mistress Wyatt,” he addressed Minuette, and even his voice had a new authority to it. “Our king is right in naming you a bright star. Your birth was a gift—to the king whose hour it shared and to those here who love you. You were born to be loved.”

  Elizabeth, listening hard for every meaning, felt a twist of annoyance at that. To be loved was far too passive. She herself would prefer to do the loving and retain the control. But not everyone was like her—and certainly Minuette could not complain at being loved by a king.

  “There has been peril in your life,” Dee continued, “and doubt. Do not be too eager to escape either—peril is often the price for doing what is right, and doubt is good, as it makes us search our own motives—”

  William interrupted. “Peril, doubt—I mislike this way of speaking to the lady. As the bright star she is, there must also be joy.”

  For one moment, Dee met William’s gaze as an equal, assessing and perhaps understanding more than he should. Then he flickered down a notch and returned to Minuette. “Yes, mistress,” he said gravely. “There will be an abundance of joy, for such is your nature. There will be marriage, passionate and deep. Though peril and doubt walk hand in hand with such joy, you will count the price well paid for what you gain.”

  That pleased William more, for he took Minuette’s hand, raised it to his lips, then continued to clasp it as she said, a little shakily, “Thank you, Dr. Dee. You quite take my breath away.”

  Elizabeth would have bet everything she owned that Dee was not telling all. This was vagueness, but so well finessed that he might not be accused of foretelling an unpropitious future. Peril and doubt? If Minuette were to be William’s wife, there would be plenty of both. And even a marriage “passionate and deep” could be a thing of disaster in the end.

  “Elizabeth,” William ordered Dee. “My sister must be next.”

  She waited for Dee to search out her page in his folio—though he had not referred to Minuette’s at all, as if he had memorized their fates—but surprisingly, he disagreed. “If it please Your Majesty, I had thought to address you next. From the youngest to the oldest—there is symmetry in such a reading.”

  William had been drinking just enough that Elizabeth wasn’t sure if he would snarl in anger or give way graciously. After hesitating, he gave way. “Who am I to gainsay the stars?” Another subtext: I’ll let you take me in turn, but it had better be worth my while.

  Dee gave a flick of a smile as he turned over Minuette’s star chart to reveal the one beneath it. “As you say. Despite the fact that you and Mistress Wyatt were born nearly at the same hour and in the same place, the stars reflect the differences between you. You know, naturally, that the comet that marked your birth was a portent of great power. The heavens marked you at birth, Your Majesty, and every moment of your life has been lit with the flame of that comet.”

  “Flame can be grand or destructive,” William replied, not as lightly as it appeared. “Which am I?”

  “A grand king in a time of destruction. The powers of Satan oppose you—”

  “Wretched Catholics,” William muttered.

  “—and Europe grows uneasy at England’s rise. There is much uncertainty on your path, Your Majesty. But a burning star can blaze the way to a new world—or it can flame out and fall into darkness.”

  The last words rang ominously into the silent room. Elizabeth’s throat tightened. Had Dee just accused her brother of possibly choosing darkness?

  William waved it away. “Of course I choose the new world. What of more … personal fates?”

  Was it Elizabeth’s imagination that Dee held the image of William and Minuette’s clasped hands in his mind as he answered? “The personal and the public march together for a king. Trouble there will be, and opposition, but you will always keep your own ends in mind. You will never lose sight of what you most desire.”

  William gave his catlike smile as he leaned back in his chair. “That is a future I can embrace.”

  But you need hardly look to the stars to know that much of William, Elizabeth thought—or any king, for that matter. Their father had never lost sight of what he desired, and had nearly riven his kingdom for it.

  Feeling more nervous than she’d expected, Elizabeth met Dee’s attention next. But his gaze was kind, almost … sorrowful?

  “Your
Highness,” he began, and this time he did look down at the new chart he’d turned to, as though wondering where and how to begin, “your stars were the most difficult to interpret. They are changeable, one might almost say willful.”

  “Right stars, then,” William said with good humour.

  Elizabeth hardly heard him, for her eyes were riveted to Dee’s. That cryptic sense she’d had earlier intensified. For a moment she felt that she was seeing the future herself. He is important to me, she realized, or will be. For a long time to come.

  As though acknowledging her unspoken thoughts, Dee nodded. “Your future is veiled even to yourself, Your Highness, for the clearest eyes cannot see straight into the sun. You love deeply and your loyalty to your single love will be everlasting.”

  Did he mean Robert? Everlasting loyalty … but that could mean anything from eventual marriage to a lifetime of unfulfilled love.

  “You will command men and guide nations,” Dee continued, and in that moment he crossed the line of discretion he had been walking so carefully before.

  Suddenly alert (though probably he had been all along), Dominic laid a hand on William’s shoulder. “Beware, Doctor. Your king guides this nation.”

  “And as such, he has already given Her Highness her first command, when he named her regent earlier this year. And before another year passes,” Dee returned his gaze to Elizabeth, “you will be your brother’s voice in a foreign land.”

  That did speak of marriage—one out of England. Elizabeth blinked, furious at herself for disappointment. It was hardly news. This wasn’t prophecy; this was merely stating the obvious.

  But John Dee continued to stare at her and Elizabeth had a queer double feeling that she was seeing him here, now, and also seeing him some years in the future, with white hair and a pointed beard. He was going to tell her how to save England, he was about to tell her what she need do for her people …

  The moment snapped and Dee cleared his throat as he turned his full attention to Dominic. He took Dominic’s measure, the only one standing, protective behind William, with one hand still on his friend’s shoulder. “The elder brother,” Dee said thoughtfully. “The first, who would be last.”

  Dominic dropped his hand and said stonily, “I have no need for a star-teller. I choose my own future.”

  “But you do not choose that of others—and as long as your life entwines with those you love, you are not entirely free. You are the eldest, but you have the most to learn. Lessons of honour and loyalty and, yes, of choice. Not everything in this world is as it seems. You must learn to see gray, where before you have seen only black or white. There will be pain in the learning, and danger if you will not learn to bend.”

  William snorted. “There will only be pain because Dom thinks too much and makes everything more serious than it needs to be.”

  “That is your calling,” Dee said to Dominic. “You are, above all, loyal, and you speak always to the king’s conscience. Who will tell him the truth if you will not?”

  A pause, verging on uncomfortable, until William spoke. “Tell Dom something pleasant—how many beautiful women in his future?”

  An even longer pause, then: “Only one,” Dee said tersely. “There will only ever be the one.”

  Tension entered the room, on such misty feet that Elizabeth could not say where it centered. William broke it with a laugh as he stood. “Well, that’s all right, then. All we need do is identify this one beautiful woman and Dom’s future is set.”

  And just like that they were finished. William went so far as to clap John Dee on the shoulder. “My thanks for an interesting diversion, Doctor. I hope you shall find our court accommodating to your intellect and talents.”

  Dee bowed. “The most glittering court in Christendom, Your Majesty.”

  “Ha! I’d love to see Henri’s face when he finds that the English have captured what the French could not. You are most welcome at my court, Dr. Dee, if ever you should tire of Northumberland’s household.”

  Then William spoke to the rest of them. “There is still music to be had this night. Dom, if you dance with Minuette first, then no one will find it odd when I come along and steal her from you.”

  “Not odd at all.” Dominic’s voice was toneless. “Dr. Dee, if you don’t mind, I will stay until you have burned those charts.”

  “Of course,” Dee answered, and emptied the folio. There were only the four pages; Dr. Dee had written down his calculations, not their interpretations. Those would stay locked in his own mind. One by one he fed the pages to the flames.

  “Thank you,” Dominic said. He and Minuette followed William out the door.

  Elizabeth hesitated, then confronted Dr. Dee, who straightened, meeting her on that precarious equal ground that made her both nervous and approving.

  “Your Highness?” He made it a question, but she would have wagered he knew what she was going to ask.

  “What did you not say, Doctor?”

  “Many things, Your Highness.”

  “Why? What is so bad that it could not be told?”

  “Why must it be bad? Even glorious futures do not come without cost. And as I believe I said before, this is not exact. God made the stars as he made men. Only He can read them perfectly.”

  “What did you see?” Robert’s wife dead? Elizabeth married for love, as William meant to do? Civil war, as another Tudor king cast aside wisdom for desire? Elizabeth far from England for all the rest of her life as the wife of another royal? As she thought that, Elizabeth’s heart pierced with pain and she knew that would be the worst future for her of any—to leave England and never return.

  Dr. Dee was silent. The hiss of the flames twisted like cords around her skin, and she had a sudden sense that there were ghosts in the room, pressing into this moment as though they’d been waiting. Her father and grandfather, of course, but even stronger was the sense of her grandmother: Elizabeth of York, whose Plantagenet blood had sealed Henry VII’s Tudor victory when they wed. What did that daughter and mother of kings want her namesake to know?

  Unexpectedly, Dr. Dee took her right hand, letting her fingertips rest in his palm. “This is the hand of a woman, Your Highness. But it is also the hand of a ruler. The king, your father, spent much effort and pain to secure a worthy heir for England. If he had been able to see beyond your woman’s body, he would have found the heart of the heir he sought.”

  He pinned her with his eyes, an urgency to his gaze as though there was more he could say but wouldn’t. Elizabeth could almost feel words forming along her skin where he touched her hand, and if she stayed here another moment she would know something she had never dreamed of …

  She snatched her hand away. “Goodnight, Dr. Dee.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  HOW, ROBERT DUDLEY wondered, does George Boleyn nose out these insalubriously private areas of every royal palace?

  He doubted it was the women George took to bed who told him how to find dank cellars and tunneled-out storage spaces—Rochford was liberal in his sexual activities, but also discriminating. His type of woman might not always be a lady, but she would never be a common whore. And Robert could not imagine any woman except a desperate one being caught dead in this particularly foul-smelling section of Greenwich.

  Strictly speaking, the walled yard in which he paced wasn’t part of the palace itself. It belonged to a dilapidated stone outbuilding that held a jumble of gardening equipment, which on the night before Christmas was in little danger of being used. The stench came from the Thames, running fast and foul only yards away.

  What am I doing? Robert asked himself uneasily. It was a question he’d begun to pose with distressing regularity the last six weeks. Working with Rochford had promised so much, but he was beginning to wonder if it was worth it. It wasn’t so much the Duke of Norfolk’s death in disgrace that bothered him, nor even the continued imprisonment of his grandson, the Earl of Surrey, for an almost wholly imaginary crime. Robert didn’t like the Howards and had no reg
rets about helping the proud Catholic family along their way to destruction.

  What troubled him were particular faces and the memories attached to them: Elizabeth’s earnest faith when she’d asked him to go after Minuette for her friend’s safety; Dominic’s stubborn lies about Giles Howard’s death—also done in the interest of protecting Minuette. Her face troubled him as well, because he felt guilty for using her and he couldn’t pin her down, all of which was eminently frustrating.

  But beneath the frustration was the fact that he had been lying to Elizabeth and her friends for months. All right, be honest, it was more like years. It had begun in the late autumn of 1552, when Rochford suggested Alyce de Clare as a likely instrument in their plans. Alyce had been a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne and was thus ideally placed to report gossip and pass on carefully calculated rumours of Catholic conspiracy. She was also ambitious, which made her susceptible to flattery and promises. Robert had latched on to Alyce enthusiastically when he’d troubled to study her a little closer. Though not really beautiful, Alyce had possessed an excellent figure and a streak of something in her nature—Wildness? Calculation? Animal cunning?—that had readily appealed to him. More than once in the months of flirting and intimacy that followed, he’d guessed that Rochford knew firsthand of Alyce’s physical appeal, but he had never asked.

  “Contemplating your sins, Lord Robert?”

  Not only could the Lord Chancellor move almost silently, it also seemed he could read minds. His voice made Robert twitch in annoyance and surprise.

  “Contemplating how many of them I can lay at your feet, my lord,” he rejoined smoothly.

  “Not a one,” Rochford answered with equal smoothness. “A man’s sins are his own.”

  “And you’ve made sure nothing I’ve done can be directly traced to you.”

  “Of course.”