Festina Lente

Chapter Eighty-One: Bastard Son of a Duke

22nd of June 1535 - Florence, Italy

Staring down at his most recent letter from home, the Duke of Bedford could not help but wish he was there with his wife and children instead of trapped in this muddy field in the middle of the Italian countryside. 

The march to Florence had been a slow one, much slower than the army would have liked to move but they had arrived and work had begun to take over the city as quickly as they could. 

The siege had not been expected but they had known that Florence would not fall easily especially with the Emperor's bastard daughter recently wed to Alessandro de' Medici; imperial forces appeared to be backing the city and preventing it from falling. 

Not that it would do much good, there was no sign of outside help coming to boaster the forces that held the city and with each passing day they were running out of time. 

It was only a matter of time afterall until they ran out of food, there was no way in or out of the city that the army was not guarding and George doubted it would be long before they were desperate for aid. 

Thomas Wyatt had arrived that morning with the Doge of Venice, the man coming to make terms with the Kings and there had been whispers that Andrea Gritti had already refused to aid Alessandro in favour of the alliance. 

It appeared that Alessandro de' Medici had very few allies, even the ones that he did have would not come to his aid at this time not with an army sitting at his gates waiting for the moment they could take Florence from him. 

George sighed and closed the letter from Clarice, he longed to be back home with her and meet their son for the first time; he had been relieved to hear that the labour had gone well and that she was healthy as was their child. 

The fact that they had a son warmed his heart, he had never truly cared about the genders of their children as long as they were healthy but George would not deny that William's birth had eased a lot of tensions. 

The last thing that George wanted was to return from Italy to find his family at each other's throats, he wanted to come home victories and focus on continuing the work that he and Anne had been doing before he had left.

England needed stability, it needed a strong figure head and George knew that his nephew would one day step into the shoes. 

Alexander was the future and he had to be prepared for that, he was the one that would follow Henry and become the King of England; a fine match had already been made for him and now the rest had to fall in place. 

It would not be long before Alexander would be sent away to Ludlow to be prepared for his future, a future that could be easily taken from him if the Boleyns did not watch their steps. 

There were still Plantagenet claimants to the throne that could cause issues when Henry died, they could find themselves facing the next Richard III and there would be nothing that they could do about it. 

George could not help but ponder their next steps, he could not shake the pit in his stomach and he knew there was at least one issue that he could deal with while in Italy. 

Despite Thomas Wyatt's success with the Doge of Venice and bringing him into the fold, it had been brought to George's attention that the man had not heeded his last warning about his poetry. 

His continued obsession with Anne would have to be dealt with, there was no way that such writings could be allowed to return to England; least it damage Anne's reputation further. 

Sitting back in his chair, George wished that there was another option; he did not relish the idea of what he had to do and he would give Thomas one last chance to stop this.