And Elizabeth Hay felt a chill race down her spine. Never leave? God forbid! She would go as soon as the child was safely delivered and in its mother’s arms. She already had Nancy packing for their journey, and had sent for a contingent of her own Friarsgate men, too afraid to ask for a royal escort lest she be denied. She was going home! She needed to be on her lands again. She needed her husband and son.
On Sunday, the seventh day of September, Anne went into labor in the great bed of state that had been prepared for the birth. Around her, the midwives and the physicians conferred, while by her side Elizabeth Hay sat holding the queen’s hand. As her labor grew in intensity Anne squeezed the hand in hers over and over again until Elizabeth thought it would never be of use to her again. The cries of the woman in labor reached the courtiers awaiting word of the birth in the queen’s reception room. Among them a seventeen-year-old Mary Tudor waited to be displaced by a brother. Perhaps then they would let her see her mother. Perhaps then they would finally let her marry her cousin Phillip, as her mother wanted her to do. Phillip was very dashing.
And then between three and four o’clock that early September afternoon the wail of an infant was heard. It was a strong cry, and those in the waiting room began to smile. Perhaps it had all been worth it, after all. The child, a Virgo, would be a great king. They showed the queen her infant, and Anne began to weep. Only those standing closest to her heard her soft words. “I am ruined!”
“Nay!” Elizabeth bent to whisper to the exhausted woman. “She is a strong babe, and but the first of many that you will bear the king.”
Outside, it was announced that the queen had been delivered of a fair maid, a princess she had declared would be called Elizabeth, after the king’s late mother. The king came, and went in to his wife. The child was healthy, he declared jovially, and the prettiest he had ever seen, with her halo of red-gold hair so like his. There would be others, he said, but everyone knew he was disappointed. Anne Boleyn’s star was fading fast, and the king’s eyes were already lighting with pleasure upon one of her ladies-in-waiting: the meek and mild Mistress Jane Seymour.
“We will call the babe Mary,” he told his wife.
“Nay, you have a daughter Mary,” Anne said with a show of her old spirit. “I have called her Elizabeth after your sainted mother, may God assoil her good soul. You will name the lads, my dear lord, but I will name the girls.”
The king chuckled, eased from his bad mood briefly. Then he nodded. “Agreed,” he said. “You always did know how to bargain, Annie.” Then he left her.
Elizabeth came back in to be with her friend. Anne was paler than she usually was, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes, which now had a haunted look in them. “He spoke kindly to you,” Elizabeth comforted the queen as those around her prepared her for sleep.
“I have disappointed him. I said my daughter was named after his mother, but she is named after you too. May she be as strong a woman as you, Bess,” Anne said.
Three days after her birth the princess to be called Elizabeth was baptized by Archbishop Cranmer, immersed in the silver font kept for royal babies. She then went off to her own royal household while her mother lay in state receiving the mighty. But it all rang hollow. Everyone knew the king was unhappy, no matter his fine words. And Anne was condemned to remain forty more days in her confinement until the ceremony of her churching took place.
And then one morning in early October, as the king came from his chapel, a man with a wealth of black hair, as tall as if not taller than Henry Tudor, came down the corridor of the palace dragging two yeoman of the guard, one clinging to each of his arms. The king and his companions were both astounded and surprised. Reaching Henry Tudor, the great man shook the guardsmen off and bowed politely to the monarch.
His gray eyes engaged the king’s blue ones. His garments were soiled, but of decent quality. There was a length of red-black-and-yellow plaid over one of his shoulders. He was unarmed but for a dirk at his side. “Your majesty,” he said in a deep voice that hinted of the north. “I have come, with your permission, to fetch my wife home.”
“Your wife?” The king was truly puzzled.
“Elizabeth Hay, the lady of Friarsgate, your majesty,” the man said. “She came in the spring at the queen’s command. Now I would like her to go home at your command.”
Henry Tudor began to chuckle, and the chuckle grew into a great shout of laughter. The men around him looked nervously at one another. Should they laugh too? Discretion prevailed, and they remained silent. The king’s amusement eased, and, nodding, he said, “Aye, Scotsman, it is time you got your wife back, and if she is anything like her mother, which I believe she is, she longs for her beloved Friarsgate.” He turned to look at the men accompanying him, and, finding who he sought, he waved him forward. “I will send for your wife to come to you in my gardens. She has our permission to go home. In the meantime I give you a fellow Scot to keep you company.” Then, with another deep chuckle, Henry Tudor moved past Baen Hay, the MacColl, and on down the corridor.
The two men eyed each other, and then the king’s man held out his hand. “I am Flynn Stewart,” he said.
“Baen Hay, known as the MacColl,” was the response. “You must be the other Scot she kissed when she was here last.”
Flynn Stewart was unable to repress the grin that sprang to his lips. “A gentleman does not kiss and tell, sir,” he said as they walked down the corridor and out into the gardens by the river. She had not been lying: Her husband was a big man.
Baen chuckled. “Do you think she has enjoyed her time here?” he asked.
“She came for the queen, but I know she longs to go home. The queen feels she needs Elizabeth’s friendship, but she does not consider her friend’s husband or child or responsibilities, her own needs overshadowing all.”
“They say she is a witch,” Baen said.
“They are wrong,” Flynn countered. “She’s just an ambitious woman who has now played her trump card, and probably lost. I doubt Elizabeth could have gotten away from her but that you came to fetch her. It is better she not be caught in what will follow, Baen Hay. Her heart is too good.”
“Aye,” Baen agreed, “it is.”
“Baen!” Elizabeth was flying across the lawns, holding her skirts up so that she would not trip. She flung herself into his open arms. “Oh, Baen!” And, taking his head between her two hands, she kissed him hungrily.
“I will bid you both farewell and a safe journey then,” Flynn Stewart said. She loved him. Oh, yes, she loved him very much, and for a brief moment he was envious.
Elizabeth turned in her husband’s arms. She smiled sweetly at Flynn. “Thank you,” she said softly, and then together with her husband, the lady of Friarsgate walked across the green lawns of Greenwich towards her uncle’s house. She did not look back, and so she did not see the woman standing alone in an upper window. She did not hear the familiar voice whisper a farewell. She did not see the single tear slip down the queen’s face. She was going home with her husband, and for the first time in months Elizabeth felt lighthearted. The day was bright with an October sun. Baen was by her side. And she was going home to Friarsgate!
Epilogue
June 1536
Flynn Stewart was riding for the border separating Scotland and England. He had taken a route far out of his way, but before he saw his brother, the king, he meant to stop at Friarsgate first. He owed that to Elizabeth. Looking about him as he rode, he admired the beauty of the region, now understanding Elizabeth’s passion to live here, and not at court. It had been almost three years since he had watched as Elizabeth and her husband walked away from Greenwich. He wondered if she had changed, but thought not. And then he topped a rise in the narrow road, and there before him lay Friarsgate. Its fields were filled with growing grain, and its green hillsides dotted with white sheep. He halted for a brief moment, taking it all in. Could he have been happy here? Perhaps, but he could have never denied his loyalty to his brother, King James V.
