Chapter 39
Lina
“It should not be difficult to find a reason to have Norfolk thrown in the Tower,” Anne told Lina.
They were walking the perimeter of the convent grounds, taking in the first day that promised the cool and crisp weather of fall.
“God knows he has committed plenty of sins, like carrying on an affair and living with his mistress for years.”
Lina raised an eyebrow. “Sins are for women. Men merely make mistakes, easily brushed under the rug.” She had seen the disparity play out a thousand times before. “There isn’t a chance we could get him on adultery. Only wives are punished for stepping outside the marital bed.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Anne agreed, gesturing to herself with a sardonic flourish. “What about violence against his wife? The Duchess of Norfolk has repeatedly accused her husband of mental and physical abuse.”
“In this country, it is not illegal for a man to hit his wife,” Lina said.[*1]
Anne’s face crinkled in concentration. “What about the time he served up his niece as a child bride to a murderous king?”
Lina shrugged. “That’s merely politics.”
“Well, do you have any ideas?” Anne asked, exasperated.
Lina was not glad to find flaws in Anne’s arguments—almost everyone who had met the Duke of Norfolk would agree the bastard had earned a hanging five times over. But until he made a move that angered or endangered the king, Norfolk would remain protected by his gender and his birthright.
They walked another few yards in silence as Lina thought.
It was too bad they had such dark deeds to plot that afternoon, for the day was absolutely perfect.
The farms nearby had finished the bulk of their harvests, and there was something so satisfying about seeing the neat rows of grains sheared to a uniform carpet of gold.
Autumn always brought the most stunning colors—when it wasn’t raining, of course—and today was no exception.
Bright blue skies soared overhead, punctuated by pillowy clouds, while the ground below offered a cheerful palette of green and red leaves with splashes of pumpkin orange and cinnamon brown.
Mary had always loved this time of year, and so Lina had loved it too.
Lina stopped in her tracks. There it was—the spark of a plan.
Anne turned back toward her, a question in her eyes.
“Henry associates weddings with funerals,” Lina said slowly.
“He’s killed or imprisoned more than a dozen people now who he thought were involved in various plots or failures when it came to his wives.
Anyone who so much as looks at a queen in the wrong way could find himself sent off to a remote warfront or beheaded on the Tower Green. ”
“You want to trick Norfolk into pursuing Parr?” Anne asked, unconvinced. “I don’t know how we could accomplish that.”
“No.” The solution was slightly more complicated. “I want to make Henry believe the Duke of Norfolk is trying to woo Mary.”
Anne’s eyes widened. “Mary—your daughter?”
“Mary, my daughter, who is the most eligible young woman in all of England. Whom Norfolk knows to be influential with her father, the king, whose favor he has lost. We make it look like Norfolk is trying to join the royal family.”
Anne began to nod, picking up the thread of Lina’s thoughts.
“Henry would be furious. He would consider it a terrible insult to the crown for a married man—one bordering on disgrace at that—to pay Mary suit. Not only that, but Norfolk wouldn’t have even come to him to ask for permission, which would be another unforgivable slight.
But how could we make it appear that way without endangering Mary’s reputation? ”
Lina smiled, her mind racing ahead. “I have an idea.”
They drafted the letters first. Anne used her magick to write in Norfolk’s hand, penning letters from Norfolk to Mary that began passionately with promises to leave his wife and mistress, to love her and bed her even if her father did not approve.
They ended in bitter frustration at her lack of response.
The letters would be sent to Parr, who would turn them over to Henry and Archbishop Cranmer, claiming she had intercepted them before they ever reached the innocent eyes of the princess.
Presented with such evidence of the duke’s misconduct, Cranmer would have no choice but to open an investigation. When asked about the letters, Mary would be able to corroborate the story honestly, without any knowledge of what they had done. She would be safe.
An unfinished but ardent letter was to be smuggled into the Norfolk household, courtesy of a Sisterhood contact, for the duke’s mistress, Bess Holland, to find. Lina was counting on her to play the woman scorned and testify against Norfolk when the time came.
But it was the third piece of the plan that Lina relished the most. Because she was going to set the Duchess of Norfolk free and let her put the final knife in her husband’s back.[*2]
The next week, Lina and Anne took a carriage to Redbourn.
The duchess—Lizzy, as she was fondly known to Lina from her time as a queen’s lady-in-waiting—had been an anchor in the storm of England since they met more than thirty years ago.
Although she was energized by her plan, as the horses drew them ever closer, Lina felt a bit sick to her stomach when she realized that all this time, Lizzy had only been two hours away.
I should have come here sooner. First thing, when I joined the Sisterhood, Lina thought. She found herself hoping that Lizzy hungered for freedom and would fly from her prison as though she’d been given real wings.
The manor where Norfolk had sent Lizzy was small and nondescript, half of it looking ready to tumble down with a strong breeze, and certainly not suitable for a duchess.
Lina had heard rumors that Lizzy was living on just two hundred pounds a year, and now she knew those rumors were true.
The duchess had been banished to a remote farming community to wither away and die in a house that was not her own.
Lina would not let it last a moment longer.
As soon as the carriage stopped, she was out the door, but Anne hesitated.
“I think I should stay behind,” Anne said, sounding contrite. “I…I wasn’t very kind to my aunt during my reign.”
Lina snorted, for that was putting it mildly.
When Anne had supplanted Lina as queen, Lizzy had dissented loudly and consistently against her own niece until Anne had her removed from court.
Lina had been heartened that Lizzy would defend her so, no doubt tempting Norfolk’s rage—she was one of the few friends who had stood by Lina to the bitter end.
Lizzy had even refused to attend Anne’s coronation, much like Mary had.
It was strange to think that many of the people Lina loved the most in the world had, at one point or another, hated each other. [*3]
In retrospect, Lina understood the decision Anne had made to cut ties with her aunt: Anne had needed to shore up power to fulfill her mission for the Sisterhood, and Lizzy had been there to tear her down at every turn.
Lina knew there were bound to be hard feelings between the two women, but she hoped they could set that aside for the sake of their greater goal.
“You’re coming,” Lina declared. “And you’ll simply have to take whatever comes your way.”
Anne grimaced but nodded, following Lina out of the carriage.
They were glamoured—this time to look vaguely like two women from a village near St. Margaret’s—but it was there that their attempts at subtlety began and ended.
Lina barged into the house without knocking, ignoring the startled questions from the manservant at the door and the maid in the hallway.
She had waited too long to do this, and she wouldn’t wait a moment more.
“Lizzy?” she shouted, for once not caring if she made a scene. “We have come to take you home.”
A few moments later, a woman appeared at the top of the staircase.
Lizzy was thinner than Lina remembered, and new lines framed her mouth and eyes.
But her burnished golden hair still shone, and her eyes were bright.
She looked at Lina, then at Anne, as though she could see beneath the magick, recognition and confusion battling on her face.
She descended the stairs, her gait uneven, and Lina noticed she put little weight on her right leg, swinging it wide with each step.
Age or injury? Lina wondered. The Duke of Norfolk had not limited his crimes to locking his wife away; he had hurt her too.
“Do I know you?” Lizzy asked, when she stopped to stand before Lina.
Lina couldn’t help herself—she pulled her friend into a tight embrace. “Yes,” she whispered in her ear. “But our reintroductions will have to wait.”
She took Lizzy by the hand and started to lead her out of the house. The manservant stepped in front of her, his mouth a scowl and his eyebrows drawn.
“Just what do you think you are—”
He didn’t get to finish the question, for something snapped inside Lina.
Perhaps it was seeing Lizzy trapped in this house, or perhaps the fire she kept banked inside had finally burst through its icy shell.
Either way, she brought her foot up between the man’s legs, sending him to his knees.
He groaned, toppled to the side, and did not get back up.
Both Anne and Lizzy stared at her, eyes wide.
“Well, I suppose that’s that,” Anne said, recovering first. “Shall we?”
Lizzy seemed utterly shocked, but she nodded and let Lina take her hand once more.
The maid went scurrying in the other direction—presumably to alert someone else about the jailbreak—but Lina didn’t slow her stride.
Within a matter of moments, the three women were rattling away in the carriage.
Lina looked back once to see several members of the household staff spill out the door, watching their captive disappear with a mixture of anger and dread.
They would have a difficult time explaining this to their master.
Once the manor was out of view, Lizzy turned to Lina. “Who are you?” she demanded, something like awe in her voice.
Lina looked to Anne and nodded, and a few seconds later she felt the glamour drop. Lizzy gasped at the sight of Lina’s face, then again at the sight of Anne’s. She crossed herself hurriedly.
“Dear God,” she whispered.
“Not God,” Lina said, reaching across the carriage and grasping Lizzy’s hands. “Just friends.”
Lizzy shook her head, disbelieving. “Even if you are alive, you would never extend the same courtesy to my niece.” She shot Anne a dark look, and the witch flinched. “You two are sworn enemies, not friends.”
Anne glanced at Lina and smiled.
“I promise we’ll tell you everything,” Lina said. “But first, we need to know if you will help us kill your husband.”
To Lizzy’s credit, she didn’t so much as blink.
“Certainly I will,” she replied, her tone shifting from distrustful to matter-of-fact. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”
Skip Notes
*1 Horrible, but true.
*2 The Duke of Norfolk had imprisoned his wife and given his household over to his mistress. The duchess had been locked away in Redbourn since she and the duke separated seven years prior.
*3 Every family has their troubles, but the Boleyn-Howard clan seemed to have gotten more than their due.