Gilt (30 page)

“The
right
one?” she repeated. “
Any
one would do. I for one didn’t want to go into a marriage not knowing what to expect. And finding someone handsome enough, with decent
equipment
, wasn’t difficult.”

Her statement brought to mind a long-past conversation.

“What about rich?” I asked. “And powerful?”

“That came later,” she said. “The maidens’ chamber was all about
fun
. I didn’t want to die without ever having lived.”

I toyed for a moment with the idea of telling everything I knew. Of being the one in power for once. Extricating myself from the web Cat had spun around us. I could go to the king with the information
I
had. Or maybe not the king, for the thought of his towering rage made me shiver. But a priest, perhaps. Or Archbishop Cranmer.

“You couldn’t get away with it, Kitty,” Cat said confidently. “Once I got through with you, no one would believe a word you said.” She still had an uncanny knack for reading my thoughts. When it suited her.

“You and Joan will sleep in my chambers tonight,” she instructed, as if knowing I could no longer argue. “The other ladies will be excused. Joan and Jane will be in the withdrawing room. And you will remain with Edmund Standebanke in the outer chamber as a decoy. From what I’ve heard, you two have already caused quite a commotion. Another public display cannot hurt you too much.”

She knew. The entire court knew. Edmund’s version. I would never be able to tell the truth. Because it is human nature to believe the first story heard, and not its rebuttal.

“I could pretend to stay up sewing,” I said feebly.

“You’re meeting your lover,” Cat said. “It must appear authentic.”

I didn’t know why they were creating such an elaborate ruse over this particular meeting. They never had before. It seemed to me that Cat had been positively reckless for previous meetings.

But I followed the plans. I didn’t ask how Culpepper would enter the narrow bedchamber, high in the castle wall. I didn’t want to know. Cat locked the door behind her and I remained in the fusty antechamber, alone and anxious. I would tolerate Edmund’s presence. I would sit with him. It would be the last time.

But when the knock came, I opened the door to Anthony Denny, who stood, fully dressed, in the doorframe. He had the grace to avert his eyes from sight of me in my nightclothes.

“The queen is abed,” I said.

“And why aren’t you?” he asked.

“I came to answer the door,” I stuttered, my blush sure to give everything away.

“She stayed up to meet with me, sir,” Edmund said from the gallery behind Denny, and emerged, grinning like a gargoyle into the light.

“Well, the king wishes the queen’s company,” Denny said with a cough.

“She is asleep,” I murmured.

Denny strode through to the withdrawing room door and turned the latch, but it didn’t open. I held my breath.

“It is locked,” he said quietly, one eyebrow raised. “Does that not seem odd?”

He knocked softly, and not a sound emerged from room beyond. Sweat ran hot and icy down my back and between my breasts.

Then the door opened a pinch, and Jane peeked out. If
she was surprised to see Denny there, her eyes gave nothing away.

“The queen is indisposed,” she told him.

“Then I shall wait.” Denny went to a stool by the fire and sat down. No one said no to the king. Not even Cat.

“Why don’t we give Denny a show while the others sort out the queen?” Edmund whispered in my ear. His words slid down my neck and nipped bitterness down my spine.

“For the sake of this farce, I will tolerate your company.” I made sure my tone implied I would tolerate nothing more.

“I promise I won’t bite.” Edmund reached up to stroke my mouth with his thumb.

“I don’t.”

His thumb stopped moving as he tried to stare me down, but I somehow found the steel to keep from looking away. He moved his hand to my waist.

“Still,” he said, “I suppose we should act as friends.”

“Acting is a skill every courtier learns early.”

“Why have you become so harsh?” he asked. “Why are you no longer the pliable little girl I met when you first arrived? The one overwhelmed by the gaudiness of the dresses and the extravagance of flirtation?”

“I have lived at court for a year,” I answered. “And now know that the doublets and bodices hide moral disfigurement. That flirtation is merely a warped sense of possessiveness. That love and truth have no place here. You and your friend have taught me well.”

“Perhaps,” he said with a little smile, his hand on my waist pulling me to him. “But you still have more to learn. Come closer.”

His eyes left mine to check on Denny. Looking for an audience.

“Get off,” I said, sickened by it all. By being forced to spend time with Edmund. By having it be a show for the entertainment and titillation of others. By losing William. I pushed on Edmund’s chest and he rocked backward, nearly losing his balance.

“Feisty,” he said, with an unctuous grin at Denny.

I hit him again. I suddenly didn’t care for duty, for friendship.

“Shut up!” I shouted. “Why can you not see that my desire to be rid of you has nothing to do with feistiness or women’s problems or fear of being caught, but has everything to do with you!”

Denny stifled a laugh in the corner, turning it into a discreet courtier’s cough.

At that moment, the bedchamber door opened, and Jane stepped out.

“The queen,” she announced, and the men bowed low.

“Are you to escort me to my husband?” Cat asked Denny.

“At your service,” Denny said. “Standebanke, leave your paramour, we have an important duty to perform.”

I smiled at Denny gratefully, and he nodded in return. A real gentleman. Probably the only one I’d met at court.

After they left, Jane rushed back into the bedchamber and threw open the door to the garderobe.

“Get out!” she hissed. “Get out and leave this place at once.”

Culpepper slunk like a hound from the little room. Not with his tail between his legs, but like a dog who had just picked a choice bone from the table.

“I cannot leave now,” he remarked. “Surely there are guards at the door who will note my departure.”

“Then you shall have to exit through the only available portal,” Jane said, and indicated the garderobe.

“Far too mucky,” Culpepper sniffed. “I could hide beneath the bed until my lady returns.”

“No, Master Culpepper,” Jane declared. “You must leave at once. I insist.”

“Oh, you insist, do you, Lady Rochford?” Culpepper swaggered up to her. “And what will you do if I don’t comply? Call the guards? How will you explain my presence to them? In the queen’s bedroom, smelling of the queen?” He smiled wolfishly—hungry, lean, and carnivorous.

“Yes, she insists,” I said, surprising myself as much as the others. Joy and horror rose within me in equal measure. I stilled my quaking limbs and felt a surge of strength.

“Ah, the whipped kitten speaks,” Culpepper scoffed.

“The kitten has grown claws,” I said, and stepped between him and Jane. We stood eye-to-eye, exactly the same height, though his build was much more masculine, heavy and tight
in the shoulders. I was no match for him, but I didn’t care. I was tired of being bullied.

“I quake in my boots.”

“So you should,” I replied. “You’ve made my life hell, from the very first second I laid eyes on you. But no more. Get out.”

He shrugged noncommittally and threw a conspicuous grin at Joan, who stood in the corner. She smiled hesitantly, and he turned back to me.

“Edmund told me you were a servile mollycoddle,” he said. “He said you may not be beautiful but would make a nice auxiliary, available as necessary.”

Each word stung but didn’t surprise. I stood still as stone and didn’t react. I couldn’t let him see that he hurt me. I couldn’t back down.

“But I think, on closer inspection,” he continued, salivating for the kill, “that perhaps he was wrong. You have not the queen’s vivacity or elegance, but you certainly have her spark. And therein lies passion. Perhaps not beautiful, but hardly frigid.”

He stepped closer. One hand reached up, and I willed myself not to recoil. He rested it on the back of my head, firm and unyielding as a wall.

“And those eyes,” he said. “That see all and judge accordingly.”

I held my breath, unable to bear the carrion stink of his words. But I stared him down, letting him see my judgment of him.

“Perhaps you should be
my
auxiliary.” He brought his face so close to mine his features blurred and shadowed, and all I saw were his hooded eyes. His lips moved on mine like the feathers of a vulture. “For when the queen is unavailable.”

I blinked, and a malicious glee entered his eyes. Suddenly, he stepped away, and I nearly fell, like a tree on an undercut riverbank, my footing lost and nothing before me but rushing water.

“But then again,” Culpepper announced to the room. “Perhaps you’d rather
watch
.”

He strode to Joan in the corner, pulled her whimpering into his arms and mashed his mouth to hers.

He knew that I saw. Edmund must have told him what I’d seen. He knew I’d done nothing. That I would continue to do nothing. He kneaded Joan’s bodice and her hands fluttered weakly, her face screwed up in revulsion and shame.

“Stop,” I pleaded weakly.

“Yes,” Culpepper dropped Joan unceremoniously on the floor amongst the rushes. “Perhaps I will. The company grows wearing, and I think I shall seek more stimulating acquaintances.”

He disappeared into the garderobe, and with a thunk, he was gone.

“Back with his own kind,” Jane said. “The shit.”

Joan began to cry, and I sat down beside her. She put her
head in my lap and I leaned back against the bed that smelled of the ancients, and I stroked her hair.

“Why does she do it?” Joan asked. “How can she?”

Allow Culpepper to touch her. Commit treason. Put us all in danger. Treat us as though we’re worthless.

“I don’t know.”

W
E RETURNED TO
H
AMPTON
C
OURT AT THE END OF
O
CTOBER
, exhausted and out of sorts. It wasn’t home. I wasn’t even sure what home felt like. Or if I’d ever had one. But after weeks of sleeping in other people’s rooms, returning to the palace by the Thames felt almost comfortable. The chambers had been scrubbed in our absence, the windows opened to let the river breezes through. New rushes were scattered on the floors, and the bed linens all smelled of rosewater and lavender.

Everything felt fresh. There were no secret passageways to the queen’s apartments. There were no reasons for Edmund to visit. Even the HA HA in Anne Boleyn’s gateway looked more scarred and worn. The past was past.

On the first of November, King Henry demanded that a prayer of thanksgiving be said in the churches throughout the country. We heard it in the chapel royal near the king’s apartments. The rising sun slanted through the stained glass window, the ghostly figures of Katherine of Aragon and Cardinal Wolsey pale beside the golden glassy monarch in his early years. And the present king himself spoke words of benediction that rang off the vaulted ceiling, painted blue and studded with gold stars.

I render thanks to Thee, O Lord, that after so many strange accidents have befallen my marriages, Thou hast been pleased to give me a wife so entirely conformed to my inclinations as her I now have.

He turned to smile at her, the light from the window reflecting dramatically off the silver that striated his hair. She kissed her wedding ring and beamed at him.

I stood against the wall, wedged between Alice and Joan. By craning my neck, I could just see the king in the royal pew, elevated above us all. I watched him throughout the ceremony. An old man, the excesses of his youth catching up to him. But totally assured that everything would always go his way. In that, at least, he and Cat were a perfect match.

The service ended and the king rose slowly, lifting himself with his arms, shoulders straining with the weight. He stumbled and dropped his prayer book, which an usher retrieved for him, as well as the piece of parchment that had fallen from its leaves. The king scoured the room to see if anyone acknowledged his weakness. I looked away and watched the tide of courtiers hustling through the doors below the balcony, all of them eager to catch the king as he exited through his private door.

Above them, the king hadn’t moved. He stood in the same place, one hand on the back of his chair, reading a letter, his face the same color as the parchment. His eyes, wild with some unconcealed emotion, looked up and this time caught me. For an instant, he searched my face as if looking for an answer to a desperate question, but I lowered my gaze as any courtier would. And when I raised my eyes again, he was gone.

A week went by, the palace surprisingly quiet. Everyone was exhausted from the progress. The Coven picked up where they had left off, sewing and gossiping, though the gossip remained tired and stale, tongues as idle as our hands.