“Little bitch,” Henry grumbled. “I think I shall whip her every day until her overproud spirit yields to me. And then she shall be whipped twice weekly just to remind her that I control her fate. Yes,” he said smiling. “The wench needs firm and frequent discipline. She shall get it in my house.” Besides, he thought, he had noticed upon his arrival that his niece was truly growing breasts. That meant her juices must be flowing. Best to keep a tight rein over her lest she disgrace the family. She would be a virgin when his Henry mounted her for the first time, or he would know the reason why! He intended to put his son to his niece when the boy reached the age of twelve. Seven more years. Rosamund would be twenty then. He would obtain a chastity belt and lock his niece up in it to assure her virtue. It was his grandson who would inherit Friarsgate, and none other. He glared at the servant by his elbow, and the man quickly poured more wine into his cup. Henry Bolton drank it down. Then, with a belch, he arose and stared down at the body of Hugh Cabot.
The Friarsgate folk were moving in an orderly line past his coffin. All wore solemn faces, but some were weeping openly. What had they to cry about? he wondered sourly. Hugh Cabot hadn’t been family. He had been married to Rosamund to protect the Friarsgate inheritance. He had probably been soft with them, Henry considered. They mourned him because they feared a harsh new taskmaster, and that was all.
To Henry Bolton’s surprise his half-brother Richard was the priest saying the service over Hugh Cabot. “Why did they send for you?” he demanded rudely of his elder sibling. “Where’s Father Bernard?”
“Good day to you also, Henry,” Richard Bolton said, amused. “Poor old Bernard died three years back. There has been no priest in residence since his passing. Edmund called me for Hugh.” The priest looked the youngest of his brothers over with a sharp eye. “You are getting fat, Henry,” he said. “Too much food and wine is not good for a body.” Richard Bolton was a tall, slender man with an elegant aesthetic face. The black robes of his order, belted with its white silk rope, hung on him as beautifully as court dress.
“Let us get Cabot buried without further ado,” Henry snapped. “I must leave tomorrow. I am taking Rosamund with me.”
“You cannot depart until I have read Hugh’s will,” Richard said calmly. Then his eye lit on his nephew. “Is this your son, Henry?”
Henry Bolton the younger had been standing with his thumb in his mouth. Now his father snatched it from between his lips and pushed him forward, saying, “This is Brother Richard, the priest.”
“This is my holding,” Henry the younger announced by way of greeting the cleric. “The old man died, and now it is mine, but I don’t like the wife they have chosen for me. She is bold and speaks meanly to me. You must tell her she will go to hell if she does not respect me. My father says I am to be her lord and master.”
Richard Bolton swallowed back the shout of laughter that threatened to erupt from between his lips. His gray-blue eyes danced wickedly, and he very much enjoyed his youngest brother’s chagrin at the boy’s pronouncement. “Indeed,” he said, and nothing more, struggling further with his mirth as Henry the elder cuffed Henry the younger, and the lad set up a great howl and cry.
“You have the will?” Henry demanded. “What does it say? Not that it matters, for Rosamund belongs to me to do with as I please.”
“The will shall be read after the feast, as is customary, Henry,” the priest answered.
“Oh, very well, make a great mystery out of it if it pleases you, Richard, but it will change nothing,” Henry snapped irritably. He turned to his son. “Will you cease that sniveling, boy?” he snarled.
Hugh Cabot was buried on a hillside overlooking the valley. Rosamund kissed his cold lips before they nailed his coffin shut, and she wept for the good man who had been more father to her than any in her brief memory. She stood for a time afterward as the sun set behind the green hills. Then she returned to the hall to oversee the funeral feast for her husband. She stopped a moment to look at her three uncles seated at the high board. Edmund and Richard with their gray-blue eyes, both with almost noble faces, she thought. And then there was Henry. Plump and dyspeptic, a dissatisfied look upon his fat face, his blue eyes darting to and fro over the hall as if he were taking an inventory of everything there. She took her place between him and his young son.
The meal was gracious, as Hugh would have liked it. There was salmon, its pink flesh studded with rare green peppercorns. There was venison, roasted and in a pie. There was rabbit, goose, and duck, each with a different sauce. There was braised lettuce and tiny boiled onions, fresh bread, butter, and cheese. And afterward the last of the winter apples appeared baked with cinnamon and served with heavy cream. Wine and ale was plentiful, and the entire hall was served the generous meal, much to the delight of those below the salt who had expected little else but pottage and rabbit stew.
When the meal had finally been consumed Henry Bolton said, “Well, priest, what of the will? Not that it will matter, but the formalities should certainly be observed for the law’s sake.” He leaned back in his chair. “Remember I wish to depart with the morning.”
“And so you shall,brother Henry,” Richard Bolton replied, reaching into his robes, drawing forth a rolled parchment. “Hugh Cabot made this will in his own hand and gave me a copy.” He held the cylinder up for the entire hall to see. Then he broke the seal that fastened it together, unrolling it slowly with a great show. “‘I, Hugh Cabot,’” the priest began, “‘do hereby make my last will and testament. I have but one possession on this earth, my beloved wife, Rosamund Bolton. I therefore give my wife into the keeping of my friend and liege lord, Henry Tudor, King of England. This is my last wish, and God have mercy on my soul, Amen. Signed this first day of March, in the year of our lord fifteen hundred and two.’”
There was a deep silence in the hall, and then Henry Bolton spoke. “What the hell does it mean?” he demanded. “I am Rosamund’s guardian as her nearest male relation.”
“Nay,brother Henry,you are not her guardian,” Richard Bolton said. “Not any longer. Hugh Cabot, as Rosamund’s husband and legal guardian at the time this will was written, has placed his young widow into the keeping of the king himself. You can do nothing about it. A copy of the will was sent to the king. A brief message was returned that the king was sending someone to take charge of Rosamund. You no longer have any authority over her,” the priest concluded.
“You have all plotted against me!” Henry shouted. “You cannot do this! I shall go to the king myself and protest. Hugh Cabot was Rosamund’s husband because I made him so in order to protect Friarsgate.”
Rosamund suddenly spoke up. “Protect it for whom?You have wanted this holding your entire life, uncle,but it is mine.I did not die when my parents and my brother died. I did not die when your eldest son, my first husband died. I am, praise God, strong and healthy. It is God’s will that Friarsgate belong to me and not to you. I am glad Hugh has done this for me. I dreaded with every fiber of my being the thought I should have to be in yourtendercharge again.”
“Be careful, girl, how you speak to me,” Henry Bolton warned her. “When I tell the king the truth of this matter he will give you back to me, and then, Rosamund, you will learn the things your late husband never taught you.Obedience. Your place in life. Modesty. The virtue of silence in the presence of your betters.” His face was almost purple with his outrage. His weak blue eyes bulged from his head. “This will cannot stand! I will not allow it!”
“You have no choice,” Richard said quietly.
“Why would the king give such favor to Hugh Cabot?” Henry wanted to know. “A younger son of no importance, a soldier, a wanderer, and finally thanks to my late wife, Agnes, may God assoil her soul”—he crossed himself piously—“a place in her brother’s house as little more than a servant. The king does not give his friendship to such a man as this.”
“Ah, good sirs, but he does,” came a voice from the far end of the hall, and there upon the steps they saw a tall stranger, still in his traveling cloak and gloves. “I am Sir Owein Meredith,” the gentleman said, stripping off his gloves as he walked into the hall and toward the high board. “I have been sent by his majesty, Henry Tudor, to investigate this matter of Rosamund Bolton and the Friarsgate inheritance.” He strode between the tables, handing off his cape to a servant while another servant hurried up with a goblet of wine for the visitor. “Which among you is Hugh Cabot?” he asked authoritatively.
“My husband died a day ago, sir,” Rosamund responded. “This is his funeral feast. We have finished, but let me have my servants bring you some food. You are surely famished after your time on the road.”
“Many thanks, lady,” he told her, thinking she was a very pretty young girl, just barely out of her childhood, but she had dignity and was well-mannered. “I have not eaten since morning, and should indeed appreciate a meal.” He bowed to her.
She liked him immediately, Rosamund considered. He had the same sort of elegant features that Hugh and her two elder uncles had. His face was long, as was his nose. His lips were narrow, but his mouth wide. He was obviously not a man who sat idle, for his skin was bronzed, and there were small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. But he was not close enough for her to tell their color. His hair, however, was a dark blond, and cropped short. His face with its square chin was clean-shaven, and there was just the faintest of dimples in the center of that chin. He was, Rosamund decided, rather handsome.
“Come, sir, and sit with us,” she invited graciously, and as he moved to join them she shoved her cousin Henry the younger from his seat, hissing at him, “Get up, you little toad, and give your place to the king’s man!”
The boy opened his mouth in protest, but then he looked at Rosamund, and his mouth snapped shut as he scrambled from his seat.
“Thank you, cousin,” Rosamund murmured sweetly.
