Rose Bride (23 page)

‘Stay where you are, Kate,’ Margerie insisted, but her friend had the grace to move away a few steps.

Margerie was turning too. She was leaving. He put a hand on her arm and she turned sharply. Was that pity in her face? Contempt?

His lips tightened. ‘Why have you refused to see me again? Tell me the truth. Do I not deserve to know?’

She shook her head, stubbornly mute.

He had thought himself indifferent to her rejection. But now, standing before her, he found himself remembering something he had long since buried in his heart. Something so painful he was suddenly lost, no longer sure which direction to take, the compass spinning wildly, his craft out of control.

‘Margerie,’ he began, his voice hoarse . . .

‘My name is Mistress Croft,’ she reminded him, shrugging off his hand. ‘Now if you will excuse us, we must go about our duties. I suggest you do the same.’

He said nothing. He stood there a long while after they had departed. The wind grew chill and the rose leaves shuddered, dark green against the bare soil.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Hampton Court Palace, New Year’s Day 1537

New Year’s Day came crisp and cold, snow lying in thin white patches over Hampton Court, muffling the festive comings and goings of folk about the palace. Virgil trod swiftly up the stairs, wrapped in a fur-lined cloak, and came to the chamber where his mother was now lodging with Christina. A mangy wolfhound lay asleep across the threshold, perhaps having lost its way to someone else’s fireside. He shooed the animal away, then knocked and entered, trying to look friendly. Though he did not feel friendly. His mother had arrived before Christmastide, planning to stay a month at least before returning into Kent with Christina to make the final preparations for their nuptials.

‘Mother,’ he said coolly as she half-rose to greet him, ‘stay by the fire, I can fetch my own wine.’

His mother was slightly built, white-haired under the stiff black hood, her gown old-fashioned even to his eyes, country clogs peeping out beneath. She had passed almost every day of her life in Kent’s green county, far from the royal court, and had no pretensions.

But he knew his mother, now Mistress Tulkey, was proud that her son’s godfather had been one of the king’s tutors, for such things mattered. Not only that, but Sir John Skelton had been a well-known poet and scholar, and a man of the church, being rector at Diss in Norfolk until his death. And her first husband, Virgil’s father, had been a scholar too. Not a rough-tongued apple farmer like her second husband, though his large estate must have made up for his coarseness when they married.

Eight years old. It had been a tender age at which to lose his beloved father. And gain another, rather less beloved.

He bent to kiss Christina’s hand, searching her face. She had passed a difficult few days since the snow began to fall, for the cold always crept to her heart.

‘You are well this morning?’

‘Better for seeing you,’ Christina replied, smiling.

He hesitated, having caught a hint of strain in her voice. ‘They say the snows will not last. You are worried about returning into Kent?’

‘I will survive,’ Christina insisted, and gestured him to stand by the fire. ‘Take some warmth with your wine.’

His mother looked at him as he poured himself a cup of the warm spiced wine, the flagon standing on the hearth to keep out the winter’s chill. He felt her gaze on his face, but would not turn. Even now, he found it hard to forgive . . .

Something nudged at his memory. ‘I brought you this, Christina,’ he said suddenly, reaching inside his doublet for the small silk-wrapped parcel he had tucked there before leaving his room. He handed it to her wryly. ‘I remembered we always used to exchange gifts at New Year, but have missed several years since I came to court.’

Her eyes wide, Christina unwrapped the parcel and gasped. ‘Gloves! And so finely wrought. I shall put them on at once.’ With genuine pleasure, she pulled on the kidskin gloves, handsomely tassled and with a gilt C. embroidered on each wrist. ‘But how beautiful they are. They look very costly too. You know my taste so well. Thank you, Virgil.’

‘I am glad you approve.’

Covered too snugly with a fleece to move, Christina pointed to the table. ‘I have a New Year’s gift for you too,’ she admitted shyly.

He took up the book and studied it. ‘The Letters of St Paul in the Common Greek,’ he read aloud, then bowed solemnly to his betrothed. ‘I thank you, and see I shall have to brush up my Greek.’

‘We could study together, perhaps.’

He turned, smiling. He liked Christina the scholar, her eager and tireless pursuit of knowledge. It was a trait he understood and could appreciate. Women so rarely had the chance for a good education. Latin. Greek. Philosophy. Mathematics. The keys to a rigorous mind.

‘It would be my pleasure.’

‘Though only after we are married, of course,’ she added softly, glancing at his mother as though that worthy matron had protested out loud at the thought of them sitting for long hours in the same room, thumbing together through St Paul’s letter to the faithful believers at Corinth.

He put down the book. He found his mother’s presence at court unbearable. But she had been a useful chaperone since her unexpected arrival. Christina had noticed his relief that they were rarely alone anymore, seeming to think – or perhaps hope – that he did not wish to be tempted into molesting his betrothed before the priest could join them in holy matrimony.

The opposite was true.

With his watchful mother as chaperone over the pair of them, he no longer needed to pretend. Not sit beside Christina and kiss her cold lips, nor discuss how they would be intimate after the wedding, a matter about which she seemed most curious. But of course she was a virgin, and her own mother had died long ago, leaving her with no one to ask about the rituals of the wedding night.

He hoped his own mother would speak to her about what was expected of a wife. Though if not, he would happily put off the moment of consummation until Christina felt more at ease. In truth, he had tried, lying alone at night, and still could not work up any enthusiasm over the thought of bedding Christina.

Yet all he had to do was think of Margerie Croft without her gown, and his body raced into life, heart thudding sickly, his cock stiffening in his codpiece. There, now he had done it. And Christina would think this hard flush and glittering look were for her. Traitor, he told his cock.

His mother was speaking to him in her reed-thin voice. He forced himself to look in her direction, to be courteous at least. More talk of the wedding. God send it would be over soon, and then . . . A lifetime of lying beside Christina. Dreaming of another woman’s sweet mouth and body.

His betrothed was wealthy, he reminded himself, and her health might improve. It was an excellent match, and would elevate him still further at court.

‘Are you even listening to me, Virgil?’ his mother asked, her look pained.

‘Forgive me, I am not.’

Christina’s eyes stretched wide at this insult. ‘Virgil!’ She shook her head. ‘Have you forgotten that this lady is your mother?’

‘I have not forgotten,’ he said bluntly, and downed the last of his wine, not looking at either of them. ‘Would to God I could.’

His mother stood in a rustle of skirts and left the chamber, straight-backed, ignoring Christina’s protest. He felt a twinge of guilt but was determined not to run after her and apologise. His mother seemed to believe he had forgotten what she had done when he was a child. The cruelties enacted. The lies told. But he had not forgotten. Nor forgiven.

Christina stood up too and came to him at the fireside, the fleece slipping unheeded from her lap. She was wearing a woollen mantle against the cold, her skirts hanging heavy from slender hips, her body still thin. Fragile even. She looked as though she would break if he made love to her. Another reason not to.

‘Why did you speak to her like that?’ she asked quietly. ‘Your mother does not deserve such treatment.’

He looked at her silently.

Christina frowned, touching a hand to his cheek. ‘I am not a fool, Virgil. I know you do not love your mother. But I have never understood why.’ She waited. ‘Will you tell me?’

‘I think not,’ he said tightly, not trusting himself to say more.

‘Perhaps when we are married?’

Someone knocked at the door. It was an interruption sent from heaven, and saved him from distressing his betrothed with anything too close to the truth. Distressing and offending, perhaps.

Christina called testily that the door was open, and turned to sit down again, folding her hands in her lap with feigned contentment. Her look said, we will talk of this another time. But they would not.

It was his servant, Ned.

‘Master Elton, sir,’ he managed, panting hard, ‘I . . . I have been looking for you everywhere. You are needed urgently.’

Virgil saw from his face that it was serious. ‘His Majesty?’

Ned nodded, backing into the corridor with Virgil following at once. The boy must have run up and down every staircase in the palace, by the way he was breathing. His cheeks were flushed, and there was still unmelted snow on his boots.

‘Master Greene would have you come at once, sir.’

He did not look back at Christina, but felt her disapproval like a weight on his shoulders.

The king was not sick. He had finished with the elaborate New Year ritual of giving and receiving gifts in the Great Hall and was grinning like a schoolboy when Virgil entered the chamber, finding his sovereign engaged in a game of thimblerig with several rowdy courtiers.

‘Ah, Elton!’ The king beckoned him forward, generous in his joviality. ‘The man himself.’

‘Your Majesty?’

Master Greene nodded for him to approach. ‘You have done it,’ he muttered conspiratorially, and clapped him on the back. ‘The new cordial meets with approval.’

‘Good for the heart,’ King Henry muttered, hovering first over one cup, then another, trying to decide which to pick. ‘And the sinews.’

‘Try the one on the left, Your Majesty,’ Master Greene suggested.

Henry knocked over the cup on the right. He frowned. There was nothing beneath.

‘But where . . .?’

The lord who had set up the cups smiled, though very carefully, as one would smile at a man with a dagger in his hand, and lifted up the middle cup.

There, gleaming beneath, was a gold ring.

‘God’s blood!’ exploded the king.

‘Again, Your Majesty?’

‘Of course, again. I was not ready. Now, more slowly this time, and let me see your hands . . .’

Virgil looked at Master Greene, who took him aside again. ‘Sir?’

‘His Majesty is pleased with your efforts. But he summoned me to ask for another bottle. It seems the one you gave him before has almost run dry.’

He was surprised, though pleased. ‘Already?’

‘The king has been . . . busy.’

There was a shout of delighted laughter behind them as the king finally chose the correct cup and claimed his prize.

Master Greene smiled wryly, lowering his voice. ‘And His Majesty is in an excellent mood at last, for which small mercy let us thank God. Can you make up more before the last of it is gone?’

‘I have another bottle in my room, ready prepared.’

Master Greene looked relieved. ‘Then fetch it, sir. And at once. Though discreetly, as always. None but us must know of this business. But I believe there will be a fat purse in it for you,’ he added cheerfully. ‘That should take the sting out of your nuptials. Remind me, when are you to marry?’

Virgil managed a smile. ‘In the spring. His Majesty is very generous.’

All the way back to his workshop for another bottle of his aphrodisiac, Virgil thought of the king’s generosity and tried to be grateful. But his impending nuptials still stung, whichever way he looked at them.

Three nights later, Virgil was working late in his bedchamber, recording dosages taken and the exact amount of each ingredient in the king’s new cordial, when he became aware of a draught at his ankles.

Someone had pushed wide his door and wandered inside, not speaking.

Seated at the table, quill in hand, he turned wearily, his eyes blurred from the row of neat figures in his journal, thinking it must be young Ned or perhaps one of his fellow doctors, Master Greene perhaps.

But it was Margerie Croft.

She drifted into his room in a pale shift, not looking to left or right but straight ahead. Her hair was unbound, a soft red cloud tumbling down her back to her waist. Her feet, clad in woollen stockings, glided across the floor almost without a sound. If he had not known Margerie Croft suffered from somnambulance and often walked in her sleep, he would have thought her a ghost and crossed himself.

Instead, Virgil rose instinctively to shut and bolt the open door, then stood with his back to it, watching as Margerie walked across the chamber to his bed.

She paused at the foot of the bed, and bent, catching the hem of her shift in both hands and raising it slowly up over her head. He stared at her rear view, taking in first her long legs, clad in stockings gartered just past the knee, then her white buttocks, full and round, exposed to his view. She stretched, dragging the shift over her head, and the red hair-cloud was released, concealing her slender back as it tumbled down. She dropped the shift to one side, dreamily, still not speaking, and went to lie down on the narrow cot that served as his bed.