Free The Boleyn King by Laura Andersen Page B

Aylmer, a gentle scholar who had made the schoolroom a place of intellectual adventure. Aylmer had been part of his household when William was still Prince of Wales, and he’d been a familiar and comforting presence during the bewildering transition to king. No one had not known Aylmer was an unrepentant Catholic—not until the night he was dragged out of William’s bedroom with a dagger in his hand.
    Aylmer had claimed he meant no harm to his king, that he only wanted to take William away from the Protestant regent, Lord Rochford, and into the care of less-hated men. In the week following Aylmer’s arrest, four minor members of the Catholic nobility had been implicated in the plot. They were arrested, tried, and executed before anyone could draw a deep breath. Aylmer’s death was the last—and the bloodiest. Where the others had been neatly beheaded, Aylmer’s middle-class status was not enough to protect him from the full weight of the traditional sentence. He had been hung, disemboweled, and beheaded.
    Though he was years distant from the memory, William could hear his uncle’s unbending voice echoing in his head: You must sign the warrant, Your Majesty. You are as yet too young to be merciful. Mercy is appreciated only when strength has been established . So he had signed, and Aylmer had died.
    By the time a page entered the dining room with a message in Dominic’s handwriting, William’s head ached and he wondered what he had been thinking, demanding his sister’s presence. He seized gladly on Dominic’s request for a private meeting ( Bring Elizabeth if it pleases you , he had written) and dismissed Mary to her chambers with near rudeness.
    She began to protest at spending the night under the same roof as his mother, but William cut her short. “I do not require you to meet with those unpleasant to your sentiments. Tomorrow you may return to Whitehall. But I will not trust you to the river after dark. You would not have me trifle with your safety, would you?”
    What could even Mary say to that? It wasn’t as though she would have to stay anywhere near Anne—William had made sure their rooms were separated by as many wings of the palace as he could manage. She curtsied and bade him a sour goodnight. No doubt she would not sleep, but rather spend the night in prayer against the influence of his mother.
    Dominic and Minuette were waiting for them in the privy garden, a secluded honeysuckle arbor that William and Minuette had often escaped to when avoiding lessons as children. They had always been the ones straying—with Dominic and Elizabeth always the ones dragging them back to duty.
    Tonight looked to repeat that pattern. If William had thought escaping Mary meant relaxing, one look at Dominic’s face told him differently. “What’s wrong?” he asked as Elizabeth joined Minuette on the bench.
    “Minuette received a letter this morning from Alyce de Clare,” Dominic said.
    William let out a disbelieving laugh. “The dead Alyce de Clare?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re going to tell me you were right, aren’t you? That there is something to worry about in her death.”
    “Alyce asked Minuette to keep for her some papers until she saw herself clear of her trouble. Obviously she intended them as some sort of hold over whoever wrote them.”
    “Who did write them?”
    “I don’t know, but whoever it was is no friend of yours.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Because the pages were ciphered, and I broke the cipher.”
    Dominic passed the translations to William, who in turn passed each one as he read it to Elizabeth and then Minuette. There was silence in their little corner until the last one had been read and given back to Dominic.
    “A spy,” Elizabeth said flatly. “For whom?”
    William said, “Does it matter? I appreciate your concern, Dom, but this hardly seems worth skulking in private gardens over. Alyce was asked to report on my mother’s reading habits, on those she corresponded with,