Free The Tapestry by Nancy Bilyeau Page B

trusted, gentle friend, not the vicious Duke of Norfolk. Surely he would make a mockery of every word she said.
    â€œIf it pleases you, Catherine, then it is well done,” he said. Just for a second his gaze raked over me, not with his usual contempt but almost as if he were worried about something. He had certainly never looked at me that way before. It unsettled me more than one of his bursts of rage might have.
    A man’s cry was heard outside the door. Someone opened the door to better hear.
    Bang, bang, bang. It was the sound of a stick pounded on the floor of the corridor just outside our dining chamber.
    â€œBe it known that today His Majesty King Henry the Eighth hath created Thomas Cromwell the Earl of Essex, Vice Regent and High Chamberlain of England, Keeper of the Privy Seal, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Justice of the Forest beyond the Trent,” declared the royal crier.
    The duke of Norfolk stared at the table, his face flushed dark. I expected him to throw something, scream curses, lash out at whomever was closest. But instead he looked up, the wrinkles of his face carved deep, his focus on one person: his niece, Catherine Howard.
    The way that the two of them stared at each other, it was as if no one else existed in the room. Neither spoke a word.
    â€œShut the door,” muttered the duke, and he reached down to stroke the head of his younger dog.

9

    W hen the thirty-six pages of His Majesty King Henry VIII stood in the line arranged by Thomas Culpepper, they stretched from one end of a Whitehall chamber to the other. I stood in a narrow gallery running across the upper half of the chamber. As I looked down at this restless parade of red Tudor doublets, I felt both frightened and resolute. And faintly ridiculous. At the last moment, Culpepper thrust a black mask into my hand and urged me to hold it in front of my face. The mask was carved into an expression of a lady’s petulant sorrow, the corners of her mouth turned downward.
    â€œI could not persuade the master of pages to order them all here without telling him that a lady had made complaint,” he admitted. “But I would not give him your name.”
    â€œSo they all know of the crime?” I said, horrified.
    â€œThe pages know nothing,” Culpepper said firmly. “They were told only of a need for inspection. And so long as you keep the mask in front of your face, the master of pages won’t know who you are.”
    Oh, but he wanted to know. That said master, a man of stout belly and long whiskers, stood at the end of the chamber, calling out orders to the pages. Yet every moment or so, he’d crane his neck in the most unnatural way, to scrutinize me. I stood but fifteen feet or so above him in the gallery, clutching my mask with one hand and pressing against a cold, smooth column with the other.
    Stop looking up here , I silently pleaded.
    It was high morning; a forceful yellow light streamed throughthe mullioned windows on the other side of the chamber. This was why Culpepper had arranged for the “inspection” to be held here, and not one of the larger halls of the palace. The master of pages could say that this room afforded the strongest possible light to inspect their official wardrobe, supposedly. Most important, I’d get a good look at each of their faces.
    But it was an out-of-the-ordinary undertaking and this placed even greater strain on secrecy. A few curious courtiers gathered in the doorway to a connecting chamber, watching. I tried to angle myself so that I was out of their sight, shielded by a pillar running ceiling to floor.
    At last—it began. Each of the pages strode forward, to be scrutinized head to toe while Culpepper, nodding, stood to the side. Each time a new man made it to the front of the line, my breath quickened. Because the mask was pressed against my face, my exhalations banked at the top of the gaping frown meant for my mouth. And so my nervous breaths,