Philippa Gregory's Tudor Court 6-Book Boxed Set (93 page)

“Not me,” George said gently.

“Uncle likes her best,” I said resentfully.

“He likes nobody. But he wonders how far she might go.”

“We all wonder that. And what price she’s prepared to pay. Especially if it’s me that pays it.”

“It’s not an easy dance she’s leading,” George admitted.

“I hate her,” I said simply. “I could happily watch her die of her ambition.”

♦   ♦   ♦

The court was to visit the Princess Mary at Ludlow Castle and we traveled due west all summer. She was only ten but she was old for her years, educated and schooled in the formal strict style which her mother had known at the Spanish court. She had a priest and a set of tutors, a lady companion and her own household in Wales where she was princess. We expected a dignified little woman, a girl on the brink of womanhood.

What we saw was someone very different.

She came into the great hall where her father was at dinner and had the ordeal of walking from doorway to high table with the eyes of everyone upon her. She was tiny, as small as a six-year-old, a perfect little doll with pale brown hair under her hood and a grave pale-skinned face. She was as dainty as her mother had been when she had first come to England, but she was tiny, a little child.

The king greeted her tenderly enough but I could see the shock on his face. He had not seen her for more than six months, he had expected her to have grown and bloomed into
womanhood. But this was no princess who could be married within a year and sent to her new home, confident that within another two or three years she would be ready to bear children. This was a child herself, and a pale thin shy little child at that.

He kissed her and she was seated at his right hand at the high table where she looked down the hall and saw every eye on her. She ate hardly anything. She drank not at all. When he spoke to her she answered in whispered monosyllables. Undoubtedly she was learned, we had all her tutors troop in one after another to assure the king that she could speak Greek and Latin, and compile addition tables and knew the geography of her principality and of the kingdom. When they played some music and she danced she was graceful and light on her feet. But she did not look like a girl who was robust and buxom and fertile. She looked like a girl who could quite easily fade away, catch a little cold and die of it. This was the only legitimate heir to the throne of Henry’s father, and she did not look strong enough to lift the scepter.

George came for me early that night in Ludlow Castle. “He’s foul with temper,” he warned.

Anne stirred in our bed. “Not happy with his little dwarf?”

“It’s amazing,” George remarked. “Even half-asleep, you’re still as sweet as poison, Anne. Come on, Mary, he can’t be kept waiting.”

Henry was standing by the fire when I entered, one foot resting against a log, pushing it deeper into the red embers. He barely glanced up as I came into the room then he stretched out one peremptory hand for me and I went swiftly into his arms.

“This is a blow,” he said softly into my hair. “I had thought that she would be grown, nearly a woman. I had thought to marry her to Francis or even to his son, and bind us with an alliance to France. A girl is no good for me, no good at all. But a
girl who cannot even be married!” He broke off, abruptly turned away and took two swift angry steps across the room. A game of cards was laid out on the table, the hands face down, half-finished. With one angry swipe he knocked them off the table, knocked the table over. At the crash there was a shout from the guard outside the door.

“Your Majesty?”

“Leave me!” Henry bellowed back.

He rounded on me. “Why would God do this to me? Why such a thing to me? No sons and a daughter who looks like the next winter might blow her away? I have no heir. I have no one to come after me. Why would God do such a thing to me?”

I kept silent and shook my head, waiting to see what he wanted.

“It’s the queen, isn’t it?” he said. “That’s what you’re thinking. That’s what they’re all thinking.”

I did not know whether to agree or disagree. I kept a wary watch on him and held my peace.

“It’s that damned marriage,” he said. “I should never have done it. My father didn’t want it. He said she could stay in England as a widowed princess, ours for the ordering. But I thought . . . I wanted . . .” He broke off. He did not want to remember how deeply and faithfully he had loved her. “The Pope gave us a dispensation but it was a mistake. You can’t dispense against the word of God.”

I nodded gravely.

“I should not have married my brother’s wife. Simple as that. And because I married her I have been accursed with her barrenness. God has not given this false marriage his blessing. Every year he has turned his face from me and I should have seen it earlier. The queen is not my wife, she is Arthur’s wife.”

“But if the marriage was never consummated . . .” I started.

“Makes no difference,” he said sharply. “And anyway, it was.”

I bowed my head.

“Come to bed,” Henry said, suddenly weary. “I cannot stomach this. I have to be free of sin. I have to tell the queen to leave. I have to cleanse myself of this dreadful sin.”

Obediently, I went to the bed and slipped my cloak from my shoulders. I turned back the sheets and got into bed. Henry fell to his knees at the foot of the bed and prayed fervently. I listened to the muttered words and found that I was praying too: one powerless woman praying for another. I was praying for the queen now that the most powerful man in England was blaming her for leading him into mortal sin.

W
E RETURNED TO
L
ONDON, TO
G
REENWICH, ONE
of the king’s most beloved palaces, and still his dark mood did not lift. He spent much time with clerics and with advisors, some people thought that he was preparing another book, another study of theology. But I, who had to sit with him most nights while he read and wrote, knew that he was struggling with the words of the Bible, struggling to know whether it was the will of God that a man should marry his brother’s widow—and thus care for her; or whether it was the will of God that a man should put his brother’s widow away—because to look on her with desire was to shame his brother. God on this occasion was ambiguous. Different passages in the Bible said different things. It would take a college full of theologians to decide which rule should take precedence.

It seemed obvious to me that a man should marry his brother’s widow so that his brother’s children could be brought up in a godly home and a good woman well cared for. Thank God that I did not venture this opinion at Henry’s evening councils. There were men disputing in Greek and Latin, going back to original texts, consulting the fathers of the church. The last thing they wanted was a bit of common sense from an immensely ordinary young woman.

I was no help to him. I could be no help to him. It was Anne who had the brain he needed, and Anne alone who had the ability to turn some theological tangle into a joke that could make him laugh, even as he puzzled over it.

They walked together, every afternoon, her hand tucked in the crook of his elbow, their heads as close together as a pair of conspirators. They looked like lovers but when I lingered beside them I would hear Anne say: “Yes, but St. Paul is very clear in his discussion of this . . .” and Henry would reply: “You think that is what he means? I always thought that he was referring to another passage.”

George and I would walk behind them, malleable chaperones, and I watched as Anne pinched Henry’s arm to drive home a point or shook her head in disagreement.

“Why does he not just tell the queen that she must leave?” George asked simply. “There’s not a court in Europe that would condemn him. Everyone knows he has to have a son.”

“He likes to think well of himself,” I explained, watching the turn of Anne’s head and hearing her ripple of low laughter. “He could not bring himself to turn off a woman just because she’s become old. He has to find a way to see that it is God’s will that he leaves her. He has to find a greater authority than his own desires.”

“My God, if I was a king like him I’d follow my desires and I wouldn’t worry myself whether it was God’s will or no,” George exclaimed.

“That’s because you’re a grasping greedy Boleyn. But this is a king who wants to do the right thing. He can’t move forward until he knows that God is on his side.”

“And Anne is helping him,” George observed mischievously.

“What a keeper of a conscience!” I said spitefully. “Your immortal soul would be safe in her hands.”

♦   ♦   ♦

They called a family conference. I had been waiting for it. Ever since we had come home from Ludlow my uncle had been watching the two of us, Anne and I, with a silent intensity. He had been with the court this summer, he had seen how the king spent his days with Anne, how he was irresistibly drawn to wherever she might be. But how habitually he summoned me to him at nightfall. My uncle was baffled by the king’s desire for us both. He did not know how Henry should be steered, to do the best for the Howards.

George and Anne and I were ranged before the big table in my uncle’s room. He sat on the other side of it, my mother beside him on a smaller chair.

“The king obviously desires Anne,” my uncle began. “But if she merely supplants Mary as the favorite then we are no further on. Worse off, in fact. For she’s not even married, and while this is going on no one can have her, and once it’s finished she’s worthless.”

I looked to see if my mother flinched at this discussion of her oldest daughter. Her face was stern. This was family business, not sentiment.

“So Anne must withdraw,” my uncle ruled. “You’re spoiling the game for Mary. She’s had a girl and a boy off him and we have nothing to show for it but some extra lands . . .”

“A couple of titles,” George murmured. “A few offices . . .”

“Aye. I don’t deny it. But Anne is taking the edge off his appetite for Mary.”

“He has no appetite for Mary,” Anne said spitefully. “He
has a habit for Mary. A different thing. You’re a married man, Uncle, you should know that.”

I heard George’s gasp. My uncle smiled at Anne and his smile was wolfish.

“Thank you, Mistress Anne,” he said. “Your quickness of wit would much become you, if you were still in France. But since you are in England I have to remind you that all English women are required to do as they are bid, and look happy while doing it.”

Anne bowed her head and I saw her color up with temper.

“You’re to go to Hever,” he said abruptly.

She started up. “Not again! For doing what?”

“You’re a wild card and I don’t know how to play you,” he said with brutal frankness.

“If you leave me at court I can make the king love me,” she promised desperately. “Don’t send me back to Hever! What is there for me?”

He raised his hand. “It’s not forever,” he said. “Just for Christmas. It’s obvious that Henry’s very taken with you but I don’t know what we can do with this. You can’t bed him, not while you’re a maid. You have to be married before you can go to his bed, and no man of any sense will marry you while you are the king’s favorite. It’s a mess.”

She bit back her reply and dropped a tiny curtsy. “I am grateful,” she said through her teeth. “But I cannot see that sending me to Hever for Christmas all on my own, far from the court, far from the king, is going to help my chances to serve this family.”

“It gets you out of the way so you don’t spoil the king’s aim. As soon as he is divorced from Katherine he can marry Mary. Mary, with her two bonny babies. He can get a wife and an heir in one ceremony. You just muddle the picture, Anne.”

“So you would paint me out?” she demanded. “Who are you now? Holbein?”

“Hold your tongue,” my mother said sharply.

“I’ll get you a husband,” my uncle promised. “From France if not from England. Once Mary is Queen of England she can get a husband for you. You can take your pick.”

Anne’s fingernails dug into her clenched hands. “I shan’t have a husband as her gift!” she swore. “She won’t ever be queen. She’s risen as far as she can go. She’s opened her legs and given him two children and
still
he does not care for her. He liked her well enough when he was courting her, can’t you see? He’s a huntsman, he likes the chase. Once Mary was caught the sport was over, and God knows, never was a woman easier caught. He’s used to her now, she’s more a wife than a mistress—but a wife without honor, a wife without respect.”

She had said exactly the wrong thing. My uncle smiled. “Like a wife? Oh I hope so. So I think we’ll have a little rest from you for now and see what Mary can do with him when you’re not there. You’ve been rivaling Mary and she is our favorite.”

I curtsied with a sweet smile to Anne. “I am the favorite,” I repeated. “And she is to disappear.”

I
SENT
C
HRISTMAS FAIRINGS FOR MY BABIES IN
Anne’s trunk when she went down to Hever. To Catherine I sent a little marchpane house with roof tiles of roasted almonds and windows of spun sugar. I begged Anne to give it to Catherine on twelfth night and tell her that her mother loved her and missed her and would come again soon.

Anne dropped down into her hunter’s saddle as gracelessly as a farmer’s wife riding to market. There was no one to watch her, there was no benefit to being light and laughing.

“God knows why you don’t defy them and go down, if you love your babies so much,” she said, tempting me to trouble.

“Thank you for your good advice,” I said. “I am sure you meant it for the best.”

“Well, God knows what they think you can do without me here to advise you.”

“God knows indeed,” I replied cheerfully.

“There are women that men marry and there are women that men don’t,” she pronounced. “And you are the sort of mistress that a man doesn’t bother to marry. Sons or no sons.”

I smiled up at her. I was so much slower in wits than Anne that it was a great joy to me when once in a while a weapon came to my sluggish hand. “Yes,” I said. “I expect you’re right.
But there is clearly a third sort and that is the woman that men neither marry nor take as their mistress. Women that go home alone for Christmas. And that seems to be you, my sister. Good day.”