The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers (72 page)

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Authors: Margaret George

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“Whatever you wish,” I said. The windows remained open, and the grain-perfumed air came in, along with the cries of labourers and travellers on the road below.
I wish I could tell exactly what happened in the next few hours. I said thus-and-so. She said thus-and-so. We did thus-and-so. Yet although my senses were fully alert (no wine for either of us that night), I became so transported by her very presence that everything was altered, and I cannot separate one action from another.
It makes me angry that it is so. These were precious hours to me, hours that must now stand after all the nasty tide has swept in against them, and yet I cannot remember! I cannot remember cold details, only my own feelings, which were as strong as Hercules, but formless.
I was with her. I possessed her. She was mine. The very touch of her hand was a gift. A gift which felt simultaneously natural and precious beyond thought. The ordinary me, the true Henry, was not worthy of such a gift, but this special Henry was, the Henry I became in her presence.
All this was entirely natural, was it not? To hold her in my arms, to kiss her lips, to hear those words of endearment gasped out in jerks? The special Henry, the Henry and endowed with extraordinary graces (this Henry who was both me and not me, stranger and ever-known) —he felt at ease in this bliss, this homecoming.
I know she responded, created the Henry of whom I speak. In the fleeting moments in which I existed as this extraordinary Henry, I felt I was ever thus: not fading, not temporary. I was bold with her, taking her to bed as this Henry wished. We did not remove all our clothes, so anxious were we to consummate our union and join as one. We left our upper bodies completely clothed, and our lower bodies, naked, sought one another. It happened so quickly, so completely, that the twilight had not faded altogether before our first union was done.
What a contrast was there: our lower selves still fused together in heat and sweat, and enfolded together, whilst our upper bodies touched not at all, save through layers and layers of linen and velvet and jewels.
We rolled away. But no self-consciousness yet: no, none.
I finally spoke, softly. “You are different from my fantasies.”
“How so?”
“I never thought you would know, so quickly, what it was you wanted.”
“Are you disappointed?” she said sadly. “Because I did not feign reluctance, as a virgin is expected to?”
“No, no,” I assured her. But did I speak true?
“I meant to. But the truth is, my desire took hold and I had no will or power to restrain it.” Did she speak true?
“Nor I.” I leaned over and kissed her gently. The jewel-encrusted doublet I still wore restricted my movement, reminded me of its presence. “It is time to undress,” I said softly.
Together we unbuttoned and unclasped the bindings of one another’s garments. Then, although naked, we did not look directly at one another, but wrapped ourselves up in the bleached and scented linen sheets and began to talk, like children huddled together.
The talk was awkward, when the bodies had not been. I longed to speak of all my feelings, but sensed that was wrong. Catherine had recovered herself, and began chattering away in a high voice.
“... and then the most stinking groom in the Duchess’s stables, he made gestures toward me. Naturally I was sickened: he was repulsive. How could he ever have thought I would respond? I told my aunt the Duchess....”
Why was she sullying our time together, our first union, with these tales of men who had wanted her and whom she had refused? It made me angry, it hurt me. Yet I let her go on, tried to join in, in a jolly fashion.
From thence she went on about the most inane subjects. Her Howard cousins, Culpepper and Henry the Earl of Surrey; a book she had seen Mary Howard reading; a tale told the Duchess by a returning pilgrim from Jerusalem.
It was all entertaining, witty—and impersonal. Why did she choose to speak of these things on this sacred night? Was it just nervous chatter, the chatter of a maid who feared the unknown? Yet she did not appear afraid or frightened or shaken in the least. Rather she appeared self-possessed, soothing.
I did not understand. I only felt disappointed, somehow. Not in the lovema">Then she suddenly broke off her words and turned to me, flinging her arms around me. “Now I would be the bridegroom,” she murmured, pressing me on my back, positioning me just so, lowering herself upon me. As she felt me inside her, she leaned back: pulling, pushing, straining. I saw her fair white body, slim and yet big-breasted, in the candlelight, arching away from mine. Her lips were parted, and her chin jutted out. A mass of hair enveloped her, touched even my loins, tickling them. She worked, grunted, cried out. But I felt little. I could not lose myself, although her woman-parts engulfed me, seemed to suck me in. She fell forward, a sheen of sweat upon her back.
“Ah,” she murmured, a bubble of saliva forming, and bursting, on her plump lips. Her arms trailed out on either side like those of a drunkard upon a board. Lasciviously she pulled up her left leg, disengaging our private parts. She came away from me with a great sucking noise and a trail of moisture. The drops landed on my belly: small, round, gleaming, and oily. I watched them as they formed, like little pearls.
She gave an animal sigh of contentment.
“It must take a great deal to keep you satisfied,” I finally murmured. The drops on my flesh flattened and trickled off, and I felt cold. Outside there was no light. The brief summer dark had taken hold.
XCIV
D
uring the remainder of that unusually hot summer, I fluctuated between two poles of feeling. One part of me rejoiced in Catherine, in my new wife, and basked in her beauty and unrestrained sensuality. She said things I had never thought to hear a woman say. “I dreamed last night of your man-sword, and how it felt inside me, and I could not sleep, for both the memories and the expectations.” “The way you move is sinful, and takes me away in thought at embarrassing times. Today when the French ambassador stood before me, all I could think of was the way we had screamed out together at midnight last.” Now I myself would never be able to see Castillon, the French ambassador, without remembering Catherine’s midnight ecstasies.
On the other hand, it happened again and again—she did not react, did not feel, turned a solemn moment into a trite jest. When I said, “It has never been so good, never in my life,” she replied offhandedly, “Oh, it must have been good with the Princess of Aragon, with my cousin Boleyn, with Queen Jane—for there are Princess Mary and Princess Elizabeth and Prince Edward.” Smile. Laugh. When I told her of how I loved her, she murmured, “It is carnal only, Henry, pure carnality. I know not else why we find ourselves thus.” Giggle. “Have you done this often?” Smirk. And ever: “Tell me, what do you think I—?” Do. Think. Look like. She never tired of hearing how she appeared. Once, when she came upon me writing some music for the virginal, she asked, “Are you writing a tune of our love?” She assumed I was —that she should be my subject and muse and fixation. The fact that it was so was no surprise, no gift. She claimed it as a personal victory, lugged it home with her as the hunters had done the stag and boar heads decorating our wedding-lodge manor.
She was a child, I reminded myself. Children open their presents on the spot. I knew it, and yet I expected more. Or less. I hated her bragging and her strutting. Yet I longed for her kisses and enthusiasms. And her sweet flesh. We remained at royal country manors throughout the summerted, reborn, and reshaped.
When the time came for the summer progress to end, I found I had no desire to return to London and immerse myself in affairs of the realm, to read over the rolls of the shires and the tax compilations. There was the horrid task of sorting through Cromwell’s records, and this I did not care to do at all. I knew they would be orderly and not difficult to survey. But, oh! to touch them, and see that handwriting. It would be as if he himself stood grinning at my shoulder.
Day by day I was increasing in strength and endurance, both out of doors and between the sheets with Catherine. It was only October. What need to break it all off now? I could return to London, unite my private travelling Privy Council with the London-bound lot, transact essential business in a fortnight, and rejoin Catherine for a long, slow autumn. Then there would be the Christmas revels, and after that, I could return to life as it commonly was.
Or life as it was meant to be. The realm was quiet, at long last, after the murmurings and belligerence at the start of my Great Matter; after the outright rebellion against the closing of the monasteries; after the plots and counter-plots and treachery that went abroad in the realm, masquerading as “conscience” (Thomas More), the restoration of the “old order” (Cardinal Pole), the bringing about of the “new order” (Cromwell); after outside threats and sword-shakings (the Pope and his toady the Emperor, until at last their pawn, Mary, disappointed them by coming over to my side). Oh, it was all over at last, and I was weary, weary. I had fought so many years. Now a golden haze of satiation lay on the land I had harried so, and I would luxuriate in it.
In November, then, I rejoined Catherine at Dunstable. Small manor it was, and it suited me. I enjoyed snugness now, a certain warmth encircling one’s being; although I knew I should visit Nonsuch soon, I had at this moment lost my taste for palaces and outsized things. Perhaps I wished to live as a man after living so long as a god.
I decreed that until Christmas, and the obligatory return to London, I would keep only a few about me. Culpepper, of course; Will; Paget, Denny, and Wyatt; and Richard Harpsfield, the hunting-master, along with Edward Bacon, the horse-master. Horses were most important, as I intended to keep riding until well into December. The exercise had already wrought marvels upon my body. In three months I had been hewn anew. Now I would complete the process.
After only two weeks’ absence from Catherine, she seemed dirferent—plumper, more pink. She was happy enough in the rooms of Dunstable Manor. “The windows of our chamber give off on the oaks!” she exclaimed. “I love them. They are my favourite trees. The leaves cling all winter, and they turn russet and make a lovely rustling sound when the wind rises.”
The November sun was even now slanting through those leaves and shining directly into her eyes. I kissed her and pulled her close.
Was it my imagination? Or was she, truly, thicker?
“Yes,” she said, shyly.
I was delirious with joy. “When, sweetheart, when?”
“In October I missed my monthly courses. So it is early yet. Count back three months from October-September, August, July. In June, then.”
“Catherine, my Queen, my love—the joy this brings me—”
“Shhh.” She put a finger over my babbling lips. “We are but man and wife yet. The babe is not large enough to alter... anything that we might wish to do.” Her tongue in my ear. “My body is yours as it always was. Do you remember?” She touched me in a wanton way, triggering a flood of obscene desire in me. I responded as she knew I would.
 
It was dark when I awoke. I was sprawled out on a narrow bed. Where? My eyes sought for something familiar and found nothing. All was uniformly black. I reached out one hand, numb from trailing on the floor, and felt fur. Fur? A hunting lodge. Yes... at Dunstable. Catherine with child. Now, yes ... then flooded in the memories of our wild and fearless lovemaking. Shameless in the sloping upper chamber and the coveted privacy. Things we did, unthinkable things... yet unforgettable. Instinctively I crossed myself, then cursed myself. Popish superstition. What was? The feeling that lust with one’s wife was evil. Did not the Scriptures say that Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob “knew their wives”? Yes, but not with such embellishments, or such relish. They knew them, yes, as nature required, but—
My back was exposed, and cold. I groped for a covering, but there was nothing loose. Was Catherine there? It seemed not. I heard no breathing, not even of the softest sort.
I was shivering. I must rouse and clothe myself. I leaned over and fished for garments, and they were there, crumpled at my feet. I drew them on, savouring the warmth they gave me.
By now most of my senses had returned. I knew I perched on the bed where I had lately sported with my dear wife. I was in Dunstable. Night had fallen. Doubtless it was time for supper, and Catherine awaited me in the small room appointed for meals.

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