Royal Inheritance Read Online Free PDF

apprentices.”
    “She should have a woman companion,” Father muttered. “Better yet, what the Spaniards call a duenna .”
    Offended by the very idea that I should need a nursemaid, Inearly gave away our presence. Bridget grabbed hold of my arm. Then Mother Anne began speaking again, so softly that I had to strain to catch her words.
    “The girl is a great deal of trouble,” she said.
    “That is scarce Audrey’s fault. Nor is it her doing that the king has no queen. So long as His Grace remains unwed, few women live at court. I cannot ignore the king’s wishes, but I dislike exposing an impressionable young girl to unsavory influences.”
    “I suppose I can spare Lucy,” Mother Anne said.
    “Lucy would be no help at all.” The tiring maid Elizabeth, Bridget, Muriel, and I shared was a great lump of a girl and slow-witted besides. “Nor would any of our other maidservants. They are either too young or too inexperienced, even your Nell.”
    Nell had been with Mother Anne since her own girlhood and was getting on in years. Her fingers were gnarled with age and her knees pained her when she walked.
    “Perhaps one of the other girls might accompany Audrey as a companion,” Mother Anne suggested. “Elizabeth is old enough to take on such a responsibility.”
    Beside me, Bridget began to mutter softly. She’d hated it when I had gone to court and she had not. That Elizabeth might go, too, infuriated her.
    “She also lacks the necessary experience. Bad enough,” father grumbled, “to let one of my innocent daughters stray so near to the dangerous undercurrents at court.”
    That image put me in mind of the roiling waters of the Thames, but I knew that was not what Father meant. Although he’d moved off again, I caught a little of what he said next, enough to understand that he was speaking of certain crimes committed against women.
    Father and Mother Anne did not say much more of interest.Mother Anne suggested hiring a respectable London matron to accompany me to court and to this Father agreed. Then they left the hall for their bedchamber.
    Bridget and I waited until we heard their door close before we slipped quietly back to our own bedchamber and into the bed we shared. Pocket had not moved, nor had Muriel or Elizabeth, although the latter was snoring softly. Bridget was not speaking to me, but she managed another pinch or two before she settled down to sleep.
    I lay awake, for I had much to ponder. It seemed I was to return to court and that it was the king himself who wanted me there. At first, I could not imagine why he should be interested in my doings but, after mulling over this question for a time, I settled on the only possible explanation. The answer was obvious once I thought of it. His Grace wished to ask me how Pocket was faring in his new home.

6
    F ather need not have worried. It was some time before King Henry summoned him to court again. Soon after our encounter in the garden at Whitehall, the king departed for his hunting lodge at Royston. His Grace fell ill while there. After he recovered, in July, he embarked on his annual progress, traveling far away from London so that he might visit other parts of the realm and be seen by his subjects in those distant shires. It was November before he returned to any of the royal palaces situated near London.
    In preparation for Yuletide, the king needed new clothes. With great reluctance, Father took me with him to Greenwich. I met the king at the tiltyard, where he was overseeing construction of a new seating gallery. I duly reported on Pocket’s health and well-being, but His Grace did not seem much interested. After a few minutes, he strode off to speak with two of the knights who had been practicing at the quintain.
    Father said, consolingly, “King Henry has a great many very important matters on his mind.”
    “I thought he would want to know that Pocket is nearly fullgrown now.” He stood almost nine inches tall at the shoulder.
    Father