A Contemporary Asshat at the Court of Henry VIII
MaryJanice Davidson
A Contemporary Asshat at the Court of Henry VIII
Copyright © 2020 MaryJanice Davidson
All rights reserved.
This edition published 2020
Cover courtesy of Recorded Books
Cover image of King Henry VIII: public domain
Other images from Shutterstock
Cover design by Joie Simmons
ISBN: 978-1-68068-196-3
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, except where they are documented historical persons and events.
No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
This book is published on behalf of the author by the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency.
You can reach the author at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maryjanicedavidson
Twitter: @MaryJaniceD
Email: contactmjd@comcast.net
Website: https://www.maryjanicedavidson.org
Books by MaryJanice Davidson
Undead series
Undead and Unwed
Undead and Unemployed
Undead and Unappreciated
Undead and Unreturnable
Undead and Unpopular
Undead and Uneasy
Undead and Unworthy
Undead and Unwelcome
Undead and Unfinished
Undead and Undermined
Undead and Unstable
Undead and Unsure
Undead and Unwary
Undead and Unforgiven
Undead and Done
The Incredible Misadventures of Boo and the Boy Blunder
Unreliable: A Betsy Short
Unwavering: An Undead Short
BeWere My Heart
Bears Behaving Badly
(more to come!)
Sweetheart trilogy
Danger, Sweetheart
The Love Scam (coming August 2020)
Truth, Lies, & Second Dates (coming December 2020)
Cadence Jones trilogy
Me, Myself and Why?
Yours, Mine, and Ours
You & I, Me & You
Wyndham Werewolf series
“Love’s Prisoner” (in Secrets, Vol. 6)
“Jared’s Wolf” (in Secrets, Vol. 8)
Derik’s Bane
Wolf at the Door
Monster Love
Fred the Mermaid series
Sleeping With the Fishes
Swimming Without a Net
Fish Out of Water
Sirena
Déjà Who
Déjà New
Alaskan Royal series
The Royal Treatment
The Royal Pain
The Royal Mess
Gorgeous series
Hello, Gorgeous!
Drop Dead, Gorgeous
Standalone Stories & Short Stories
Beggarman, Thief
By Any Other Name
Carrie
Keep You Brave And Strong: A Hurricane Harvey short story
LTF: A Satirical Romance
Medical Miracle
Collections
Doing It Right (Thief of Hearts, Wild Hearts)
Dying for You (The Fixer-Upper, Paradise Bossed, Driftwood, Witch Way)
Hickeys and Quickies (Unwavering, Medical Miracle, My Angel is My Devil)
Really Unusual Bad Boys (Bridefight, Mating Season, Groomfight)
Under Cover (Sweet Strangers, Lovely Lies, Delightful Deception)
Anthologies
“Letters To My Readers” in Wicked Women Whodunit (with Amy Garvey, Jennifer Apodaca, Nancy J. Cohen)
Bad Boys With Expensive Toys (with Nancy Warren, Karen Kelley)
Bite (with Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Angela Knight, Vickie Taylor)
Charming The Snake (with Camille Anthony, Melissa Schroeder)
Cravings (with Laurell K. Hamilton, Rebecca York, Eileen Wilks)
Dead and Loving It (with Janelle Denison, Nina Bangs)
“Widower’s Walk” in Dead But Not Forgotten: Short Stories From The World of Sookie Stackhouse
Dead Over Heels (with P. C. Cast, Gena Showalter, Susan Grant)
Demon’s Delight (with Emma Holly, Vickie Taylor, Catherine Spangler)
“Tall, Dark and Not So Faery” in Faeries Gone Wild (with Lois Greiman, Michele Hauf, Leandra Logan
How To Be A “Wicked” Woman (with Susanna Carr, Jamie Denton)
In Other Worlds (with Angela Knight, Camille Anthony)
Kick Ass (with Maggie Shayne, Angela Knight, Jacey Ford)
Men at Work (with Janelle Denison, Nina Bangs)
Merry Christmas, Baby (with Donna Kauffman, Nancy Warren, Erin McCarthy, Lucy Monroe, Susanna Carr)
“Alone Wolf” in Mysteria (with P. C. Cast, Gena Showalter, Susan Grant)
“Disdaining Trouble” in Mysteria Lane (with P. C. Cast, Gena Showalter, Susan Grant)
Mysteria Nights (with P. C. Cast, Gena Showalter, Susan Grant)
No Rest for the Witches (with Lori Handeland, Cheyenne McCray, Christine Warren)
Over the Moon (with Angela Knight, Virginia Kantra, Sunny)
“My Thief” in Perfect for the Beach (with Lori Foster, Kayla Perrin, Janelle Denison, Erin McCarthy)
Surf’s Up (with Janelle Denison, Nina Bangs)
Valentine’s Day is Killing Me (with Leslie Esdaile, Susanna Carr)
Titles by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi
Jennifer Scales series
Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace
Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light
The Silver Moon Elm
Seraph of Sorrow
Rise of the Poison Moon
Evangelina
Dedication
For my daughter Christina, who knew how much I wanted to write this book, and how much I didn’t want to write a 16th century heroine, and told me how it could be done. So I’m thankful, but also irritated I couldn’t figure this out on my own.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Prologue the Second
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
; Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Epilogue
About the Author
About the Publisher
Prologue
King Henry VIII is a fat bastard.
And no matter what, I’ll always hate him.
I hate his mean piggy eyes, I hate his sweaty jowls, I hate his smell, his politics, his casual brutality. I have to constantly remind myself that killing him would be bad. No matter that I’d probably never be caught. No matter that’d it be easy, and deeply satisfying.
And I have to keep thinking that because I’m in his company a lot—he likes me.
All this because I get migraines and know the Heimlich maneuver.
Prologue the Second
Because this isn’t your mother’s historical fiction. Or even your grandmother’s.
Even before I met Henry Tudor, I didn’t like him.
I blame my mother. She was a Tudorphile. And not just any Tudorphile. She was hot for Tudors the way Henry VIII was hot for spit-roasted boar and legitimate sons. When other moms rhapsodized over Barefoot Contessa or Game of Thrones spinoffs, my mom would watch and re-watch every movie, miniseries, and History Channel special about any Tudor, from Tudor Rose to The Private Life of Henry VIII.
When I subtly expressed—via fake throwing-up noises—my loathing of whatever Tudor drama she was re-inflicting on me, she explained that this was important research because our family came from England and she just knew there was royal blood waaaaaay back in the family line. Explanations that technically almost everyone came from England, just like technically almost everyone came from Africa, would fall on totally. Deaf. Ears.
Come to think of it, that should be chiseled on my tombstone: Her explanations fell on totally deaf ears. In letters an inch deep so they won’t wear off for a couple of centuries.
Chapter One
It’s really not that complicated.
On my end, at least.
It goes like this: in the wee hours (I hardly ever get the call at noon), I.T.C.H.—Information Technology for Culture and History—reaches out to tell me we’ve got another Lostie. If I have time, I take a shower; there’s no way to predict how long I’ll be gone or if I’ll have access to niceties like hot running water and shampoo.
I grab my gear and hustle my sleepy self to their woefully underfunded, understaffed Secret Lab. (Yes. They really call it that. Discussions on the intense lameness of this have fallen on deaf ears.) Then we all yell at each other for a couple of minutes, me about the sheer madness of their continual tinkering with tech they’ve proven they don’t understand, and them about me wasting time yelling at them about tinkering with tech they don’t understand.
Then I jump.
That’s the best and worst part.
I don’t pretend to understand the tech, and neither do the techs who invented the tech. I don’t know why time travel doesn’t hurt, or why it doesn’t play with my brain. I don’t know how I can stand on the platform and take one step and find myself in the same general area five hundred years earlier, as easy and painless as stepping off a sidewalk.
And since I don’t understand any of that, I focus on what I do understand: finding the Lostie and bringing them back to the present.
And almost every time, finding them isn’t the hardest part. Rescuing them is. All I have to do is follow the gossip, or the sermonizing or, sometimes, the screams. Then: voilà! There they are, sometimes about to be burned for witchcraft. Or tortured for being a witch. Or imprisoned for inadvertently breaking the law, tortured, and then burned as a witch. The 16th century enjoys Ku Klux Klan/ISIL levels of intolerance.
So, the first thing: I have to hit the ground running. Literally running, because I appear out of nowhere, and for half a second you can see the lab and the techs gaping at me through the transfer window. If there are any witnesses to a sight that would freak people out in my time, never mind five centuries earlier, I have to get away. Quickly.
Fortunately, the gate tends to dump me beside the same enormous willow tree, and the long fronds do a great job of concealing me until I am ready to be unconcealed.
More fortunate: the lab was built on what has historically been an under-inhabited area, which is a good trick in Great Britain, one of the more consistently settled places on the planet. It’s on the bare outskirts of London, and “civilization” isn’t far away. This is good news for me, because it means I usually end up in roughly the same spot. The bad news: the gates the Losties fall through can spit them out anywhere between here and twenty miles from here.
So the trick is to get going right away and keep an intent-yet-distant look on your face, as if you know what you’re doing but you’re in a rush and thus a bit preoccupied, no time to stop and chat, so very sorry. Like a party where you don’t want to get hit on by random people, you’re looking for the guy your friend swears will be, like, perfect for you. Focused, yet distant.
This time the only witnesses to my abrupt appearance were several ravens perched in the willow tree. This was better than being spotted by people, but only just. Ravens are creepy, creepy birds—intelligent, predatory meat-eaters. Wolverines with wings.
I glared at them, hiked up my skirts a bit, and set out at a ground-gobbling trot. In no time at all, I was making use of the 16th century version of Hertz.
Important tip: in the past, as well as the present and probably the future, having money makes everything easier. In this case, the smith was happy to sell me his best horse.
“But I don’t want to buy it.”
“It is yours, m’lady!” This with a dramatic flourish. Since he was a foot taller than me, with the build of a linebacker, grimy from head to toe, and brandishing a hammer, this could have been terrifying.
“Yes, thank you, but I’m not buying the horse. I will bring it back. I promise.”
He made a show of listening (my Midwestern American accent befuddles most people here and in the 21st century), then shrugged and proved he wasn’t listening. “I have other horses,” he assured me, pocketing gold. “When y’return, you may buy any of those you wish.”
“Yes, but I’m not
buying, I—thank you.” How many times was I going to have this discussion before I wised up? It was tricky enough getting me and a Lostie through the gate; I didn’t want to think of the logistics of hauling back a horse.
But as annoying as this recurring argument was, it could have been a lot worse. As usual, my clothes had done most of the talking for me. As for my accent, people who didn’t sound like everyone else weren’t unheard of in 16th century London.
Rule number one: dress like you’re somebody. Not royalty—that was a test I would flunk. But nobility? I could pull that off with the right clothing. And because Henry VIII liked me. Discomfiting as it was to be in the good graces of a narcissistic sociopath, it gave me the confidence to pull off the attitude I needed to stay unburned. Even if, during trips like this one, I never crossed paths with His Royal Grossness.
So my deep blue gown looked like it was pulled together by a skilled tailor, hugging my figure until just past the waist, then dropping to the ground in a series of folds that looked artfully crumpled (this was a cut considered “old fashioned”, hilarious given where I was). My wide detachable sleeves were turned back to show a lighter blue silk lining (as uppity a cloth as I dared wear—only royalty and high nobility were allowed to wear it), and draped so low and cut so full I could have a boulder strapped to each arm and no one would notice. I had a chain around my neck that looked like gold, and my low-slung belt was good for more than decoration; I’d attached a pomander to it via another gold chain. My hair, a color exotically known as brown, had finally grown out enough to be pulled back and stuffed under my black velvet headdress.
If my clothes had been truly authentic, I would have needed at least two maids to help me get in and out of them, and another one to tackle my hair. If I were authentic, I wouldn’t be wearing my Notorious RBG underpants; I wouldn’t have any underwear at all. If you were a woman in this day and age and you had to pee and you didn’t want multiple maids crowding into the privy to help you, you lifted your skirts and went. No underpants. Gross, yet practical. And before you suggest that getting caught with 21st century panties could get me in untold amounts of trouble, if whomever caught me knew what kind of underwear I had on, I was already in a lot of trouble.
“Besides, my underwear is nobody’s business,” I said, before I remembered that was an exceptionally dumb thing to say out loud.
Fortunately, my accent foiled the smith, who just blinked and said, “If you’ll allow a ‘pertinence, m’lady—”