Excerpt of At The King's Command by Susan Wiggs

Richmond Palace, England 1538

Stephen de Lacey, baron of Wimberleigh, walked into the
Royal Bedchamber to find his betrothed in bed with the
king.

His face as cold and unflinching as a Holbein portrait,
Stephen stared at the dark-eyed Welsh beauty all but
hidden beneath the quilted silk counterpane. A hissing
tide of resentment roiled deep inside him, threatening to
drown him. Clenching his fists at his sides, Stephen
conquered the turmoil within. Through deliberately blank
eyes, he looked at King Henry VIII.

"My liege," he said, blowing stiffly, inhaling the scent
of dried lavender and bergamot from the sachets in the bed
hangings. By the time he straightened up, the king's
attendants had arrived to groom their sovereign for the
day.

"Ah, Wimberleigh." The king put out his arms as an
attendant scurried forward and helped him don a loose silk
jacket. Henry smiled. In that smile there lingered yet a
hint of the old charm, the derring-do of a golden young
prince. A prince whom Stephen, as a boy, had idolized as
the second Arthur.

The legendary Arthur had died young, in a blaze of glory.
Henry had made the mistake of living on into the corrupt
mediocrity of middle age.

"Come, come," said Henry, beckoning. He swung his swollen
legs over the side of the bed and pushed his pale feet
into a pair of brocade slippers held by a kneeling
servant. "You may approach the royal bed. See what I've
found you."

As he crossed the huge room, Stephen felt the searing
curiosity of the sovereign's attendants. By now the
chamber was crowded with titled gentlemen, all engaged to
supervise the most intimate bodily functions of the king—
and also to influence the policies of the realm.

Sir Lambert Wilmeth, groom of the stool, took His
Majesty's bowel movements as seriously as Scottish border
disputes. Lord Harold Blodsmoor, surveyor of the wardrobe,
regarded the king's collection of shoes as highly as the
crown jewels. Yet at the moment, the attention of these
great gentlemen burned into Stephen de Lacey.

The girl smiled shyly and even managed to summon an artful
blush. She stretched with catlike grace, a bare shoulder
emerging from the bedclothes. Like most of the king's
mistresses, she took a perverse pride in sharing the bed
of the sovereign.

After so many betrayals, Stephen should have known better
than to trust the king. Should have known that the summons
could only mean more petty cruelty.

"I was feeling frisky today." Henry's grin held both
mischief and subtle rancor. Limping slightly, he went to
the royal stool, speaking over his shoulder as he relieved
himself. "I decided to exercise the droit du seigneur—
again. An antiquated notion, to be sure, but one that has
its merits and deserves to be revived from time to time.
Now, make a gracious greeting to your lady Gwenyth, and
then we'll—"

"Sire," Stephen broke in, heedless of the gasps from the
noblemen present. No one interrupted the king. In the
thirty years of his reign, Henry VIII had put men to death
for lesser offenses.

Instantly Stephen regretted the risk he had taken. With
that one blurted word he might have jeopardized everything.

"Yes?" The king seemed only mildly annoyed as his
gentlemen helped him into doublet and hose. "What is it,
Wimberleigh?"

Stephen couldn't help himself. A killing rage rose like a
fountain of fire inside him. "To hell with your droit du
seigneur."

He turned on his heel and strode from the Royal
Bedchamber. Though well aware of the infraction he was
committing, he could not be a willing player in the
familiar, vicious diversion that so delighted Henry.

The red-and-white livery of the king's Welsh yeomen passed
in a blur as Stephen strode out into the paved central
court. Seeking a place to cool his temper in private, he
stalked into a walled garden. A pebbled path led him
through tortured little plots of whitethorn and
sweetbriar. The flower beds had been arranged
geometrically, so that they resembled rather coarse
mosaics.

Stephen wished for the hundredth time that he had ignored
the king's annual summons and stayed in Wiltshire.

But to refuse the command was to risk the one thing
Stephen would kill to safeguard. If the price of keeping
his secret was to have his heart ripped out and his pride
publicly shredded, then so be it.

His conviction that the king hadn't finished with him
proved correct, for an hour later, a haughty majordomo
summoned him to the Presence Chamber.

An open-timbered ceiling arched high over the hall. The
watery sunlight of early spring streamed in through twin
banks of mullioned windows. Colored glass made a shifting,
jeweled pattern on the walls and floor. Somewhere, an
unseen lute player strummed softly, the shimmering music a
sweet undercurrent to the murmur of voices.

Members of the Privy Council stood by, sharp eyed, their
shoulders hunched beneath heavy, long robes.

Stephen paced over the smooth flagstones to the gold-and-
scarlet-draped dais. There he stopped, swept his satin-
lined cloak back over one shoulder, and sank into a formal
obeisance. Even without looking at the king, he knew Henry
relished the submissive pose of a man of Stephen's height.
Henry took pleasure in anything that made Stephen feel
smaller.

He rose with hatred and defiance clear in his eyes, and a
gift in his extended hands.

Henry sat upon his massive carved chair, looking like
Bacchus clad in silver and gold. In recent years, his face
had grown as large as a haunch of beef.

"What's this?" he asked, nodding to a page. The lad took
the small wooden coffer from Stephen and offered it to the
king. With childlike haste, Henry opened it and extracted
a tiny watch on a golden chain. "Marry, my lord, you never
fail to amaze me."

"A trinket, no more," Stephen said in a flat, dead voice.
Henry had many appetites, most of them insatiable.
Satisfying his craving for unique gifts was no challenge.

Henry slipped the chain through the baldric that encircled
his ample girth. "I assume the design is original."

Stephen nodded.

"You've a rare talent for inventions of all sorts, Wim-
berleigh. A pity you are so lacking in plain manners." The
breadth of his cheeks made his eyes look beady, his mouth
thin lipped and tight. "You left the Royal Bedchamber
without begging leave, my lord."

"So I did, sire."

Henry's hand, pudgy and sparkling with rings, smacked down
on the arm of his chair. His fingers strangled a carved
gargoyle. "Damn your eyes, Wimberleigh. Must you always
breach the limits of propriety and decorum?"

"Only when provoked, sire."

The king's expression did not change, yet his small bright
eyes took fire. "Has it never occurred to you," he asked
in a soft, deadly voice, "that you might do better to
dance with your betrothed rather than with my patience?
Lady Gwenyth is beautiful. She's well-bred and reasonably
wealthy."

"She is also ruined, sire."

"I did honor to the wench," Henry snapped. "There is only
one king of England, just as there is only one sun. My
favor is not for one alone."

Stephen bit his tongue to stop himself from responding. It
was useless to quarrel with a man who likened himself to a
heavenly body. He could satisfy his every whim all too
easily, for what sane man or woman would dare refuse him?

"For God's sake, Stephen," Henry thundered, "your
evasiveness bedevils me. I've found you four eligible
ladies in the past year, and you've refused them all. What
is it that makes you so much better than any other noble?"

"I do not wish to marry again," Stephen stated. He could
not resist adding, "My favor is for no one, not even that
silly Welsh comfit I found in your bed."

"Comfits are sweet and agreeable to the palate," Henry
pointed out.

"Aye, but when handled by too many fingers, they lose
their savor. And when left long enough to themselves, they
rot."

Without taking his eyes off Stephen, the king held out his
hand. A servitor stepped forward and placed in it a silver
cup of sack. Henry drank deeply of the Canary wine, then
said, "Ah. Still you pine for your Margaret, now seven
years cold."

With all that he was, Stephen resisted the urge to bury
his fist in his sovereign's face. How blithely Henry spoke
of Meg—as if he had never even known her at all.

"Was she so very dear to you, then," the king went on,
twisting the knife, "that you cannot love another?"

Stephen held himself motionless as his mind filled with
memories of Meg. Peeking at him timidly from behind her
veil on their wedding day. Weeping in pain and fear in
their marriage bed. Hiding her secrets from the husband
who adored her. Dying in a sea of blood and bitter curses.

"Margaret was—" Stephen cleared his throat"—a child.
Gullible. Easily impressed." With terrible, blade-sharp
guilt, he knew he had forced her into womanhood and then
into motherhood. And finally and most unforgivably, into
death.

"I know well what it is to mourn a wife," Henry said, an
unexpected note of sympathy in his voice. Stephen knew he
was thinking of quiet, dutiful Jane Seymour, who had died
giving the king the one gift he craved above all others: a
male heir to the throne.

"However," Henry continued, imperious again, "a wife is a
necessary ornament to a man's station, and old memories
should not make you balk at duty. Now. As to the Welsh
lady—"

"Sire, I humbly beg your pardon." He dropped his voice so
only the king could hear. "I will not take any man's
leavings—not even those of the king of England. I'll not
be a salve to your conscience."

"My conscience?" Henry's mouth curved into a cold sickle
of amusement. His voice was a whisper meant for Stephen
alone. "My dear lord of Wimberleigh, where on earth did
you get the notion that I had one?"

Stephen's neck tingled. He reminded himself that Henry
VIII had put aside his first wife and brought about the
execution of the second. He had appropriated the authority
of the church, taken possession of monasteries, driven the
poor from their lands. The mere ruining of a young virgin
would hardly trouble a man like Henry Tudor.

"My mistake," Stephen replied softly. "But never mind, the
Lady Gwenyth would not want me anyway."

"Ah, your tarnished reput...