Chapter 37
Lina
Anna, Brigid, and Kat had been gone over a month, and Lina liked to imagine every step of their journey, from the stops along the coastline in France to the joyful sighting of Spain’s border.
If the winds were with them, they may have already landed on Spanish soil, en route to a much-needed holiday in Madrid.
She had not said so to Anne, but Lina was jealous they had gone.
There was a certain comfort in returning to St. Margaret’s after months spent in London, but ever since their sojourn in Spain, it hadn’t felt like home in the way it once had.
Lina kept picturing the little house she and Anne had shared abroad, wishing she could snap her fingers and traverse the hundreds of miles between here and there.
Spain would already be clad in the bright hues of spring, while England struggled to emerge from the rainy weather that had lingered well past winter’s final bow.
Green was starting to creep back into the world, but it was tempered with muddy browns and leaden skies.
What Lina would have given for a clear day and the warm sunshine of home.
But there was a reason she and Anne had stayed behind, one they both knew in their hearts but had yet to discuss. And that afternoon, when the house was quiet and raindrops splattered against the windows of the study, Anne finally said the words out loud.
“Henry Tudor must die. And we must be the ones to kill him.”
It was a conclusion Lina had come to weeks ago when she was sitting beside Kat’s sickbed, watching the tortured young woman battle her grief.
Lina was not prone to strong feelings, and her first instinct had been to scoff and roll her eyes at what she saw as Kat’s hysterics.
But slowly, she began to realize that Henry had robbed them all of so much, and it set something burning in her core.
From Kat, he’d taken her lover and the bright days of her youth.
She would recover, Lina knew, but there would always be a hole in her heart.
She would always have nightmares about the day she watched Thomas die, and she would always walk under the weight of the guilt that someone had given their life for hers.
From Anna, he had taken her home and her pride in the eyes of England.
Of all of them, Anna’s future promised the most joy, and Lina sincerely hoped her friend would live a long and beautiful life with Brigid.
But Anna had sacrificed a great deal to get to where she was, independent but forever hiding her true self in a land that neither embraced nor respected her.
From Anne and Lina, Henry had taken daughters and dignity and life itself. There would be no starting over for them, no happy endings. There was only justice left to be served to the man who had stolen everything.
Three queens shall save the one, and yet the work remains undone.
“It’s time for us to end this,” Anne was saying. “If more women are hurt by his hand…”
Lina nodded. “You’re right. I want to contact Catherine Parr.”
Understanding dawned on Anne’s face. “ ‘The sixth has walked among the dead, and knows the ways to keep her head.’ ”
It had been nearly five years since Lina had seen Parr, the Sisterhood’s poisoner, but Lina had been keeping track of her.
In that time, she had remarried and lost another husband, a pattern that Lina found both suspicious and encouraging.
[*1] She hoped Parr would be up to the challenge a third time.
“We can find her a position among Mary’s ladies-in-waiting,” Lina said. “She’s a clever and attractive woman—with the right groundwork laid, she’ll have Henry’s attention in no time.”
Anne considered this. “Her pedigree is good enough, certainly, but she has been married twice now and must be nearly thirty. He won’t like that. Has she had children?”
“No. She may be unable to conceive or perhaps she takes preventive measures not to, but either way, it works in her favor and ours. Henry is fond of Edward as he is Jane’s son and wouldn’t want to disrupt his right to inherit by bringing stepchildren or new babies into the mix.
And”—this was Lina’s pièce de résistance—“with no future heirs on the horizon, she can help restore Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession.”
The idea had come to Lina as she had been clearing out the garden behind St. Margaret’s last week.
The truth of the matter was, the House of Tudor was far from woven into the fabric of England’s monarchy, being only two generations old.
Anyone could see that Henry’s health was in decline, and he had just one heir in three-year-old Edward.
Lina knew how easy it would be to overthrow the Tudors with a child on the throne, just as she knew that half a dozen claimants would come forth to do so.
Edward would be lucky to live to see his next birthday if he was Henry’s sole heir at the time of his father’s death. [*2]
Henry had loved Jane Seymour, and from all Lina had heard and seen, he loved his son too. He would be aware of Edward’s position, and it was the type of thing that could keep even a man such as Henry up at night.
But if Mary and Elizabeth were returned to their rightful places—renamed legitimate daughters and heirs after Edward—the dynasty could be preserved.
Both Mary and Elizabeth, aged twenty-five and seven, were familiar to court and known to be intelligent and accomplished.
Advantageous matches could be procured for both of them to strengthen their ties to the crown, and never again would they be in danger of being cast out.
Their futures would be secure, while at the same time appeasing Henry’s ego and his own fears for Edward.
Of course, Lina couldn’t put all of this into a letter and send it off to Henry.
It was a logical conclusion he and his councilors should have come to on their own, but they were just as likely to think of it as to overlook the possibility because Mary and Elizabeth were women.
That was where Parr entered the picture.
She would need to convince Henry of the soundness of the decision and be sure he put it into action before his death.
Lina explained all of this to Anne, who nodded along, seeing the wisdom of the plan.
“And then, when it is all done and the girls are safe…”
Promise blazed in Anne’s eyes. “We kill him.”
Catherine Parr arrived at St. Margaret’s a fortnight later.
The sun had finally chosen to shine that day, which Lina took as a sign of good fortune, if indeed good fortune could be found when plotting a murder.
Lina and Anne watched her come up the steps of the convent, two black traveling bags as her sole companions.
Parr was older than when Lina had seen her last, but her face still held that same sharp beauty, like a diamond that refused to be shaped and smoothed.
She wore a plain but well-cut black gown, the color suiting her pale complexion better than most mourning widows.
The younger woman walked with purpose, stopping only to curtsy to both of the former queens before letting herself inside.
“So it’s time to bid farewell to Henry Tudor, is it?” she asked, her voice echoing in the stone hallway.
Lina saw Anne smile—these two were going to get on perfectly.
“Would you like to rest from your journey?” Lina offered. “We can show you to your room, though I should warn you, our lodgings are rather modest.”
“All I’ve done since my husband died is rest,” Parr replied, looking around the convent as though she were cataloging each brick and candle. “I am just as pleased to be here as I am to finally shed the mantle of Lady Latimer.”
“Was your husband a bad man?” Anne asked, sounding curious.
Parr turned around to face them. “No, not a bad man. Impulsive, perhaps, and selfish at times. In the first few years of our marriage, he was in and out of trouble with rebels in the north, and it was terribly inconvenient to be left at home to raise the stepchildren and tend the estate while also trying to keep from being kidnapped and ransomed.”
“I can see how that would be frustrating,” Anne replied. Her smile was growing, and Lina wondered how on earth she had ended up being such good friends with witches and poisoners.
They led Parr upstairs to the study, and Lina gave her the seat with the best view out the window of the garden and fields below. It had been a while since she had hosted anyone outside their immediate circle, and yet she still felt an urge to play the part of the queen.
Parr folded her hands in her lap and looked at the women expectantly. “Well then. What is your plan?”
Lina had forgotten how abrupt Parr could be. It unsettled her more than she expected—perhaps because she was usually the one being direct. As succinctly as she could, she explained her strategy, from dangling Parr in front of Henry to updating the line of succession.
“Will he be amenable to those changes?” Parr wanted to know.
Anne snorted. “That’s not the word I would use. Henry isn’t the type to be talked into doing something he doesn’t want to do. He either has to think it’s his own idea, or you need to apply outside force. Even my magick could only influence him so much.”
“There may be something I could do about that,” Parr said thoughtfully.
She stared off into space for a moment before refocusing her gaze.
“Brewed correctly, a certain collection of herbs could make him more…malleable. Of course, there’s also the option of incapacitating him with something delicate and hard to detect, giving me the opportunity to rule as queen regent while he recovers.
So long as his physician found no trace of poison, no one would be surprised if someone in Henry’s condition underwent a bout of illness.
How unfortunate that it could happen so soon after celebrating his nuptials with his sixth wife. ”
“Terribly unfortunate,” Anne agreed merrily.