The Boleyn Bride (13 page)

She was eight and twenty, the same age as myself. Only
I
was still beautiful . . . for now.

I heard the door open behind us, and in the mirror I saw King Henry, clad in cloth-of-gold and deep red velvet, blazing with rubies and diamonds. I curtsied and stepped quickly aside as he came bounding into the room, a broad smile lighting up his handsome face. He went to stand behind his Queen and brushed the thick curtain of silver-veined golden hair aside, over her shoulder, and bent to press his lips against the nape of her neck as he reached around to cup her breasts. Reflected in the mirror, I saw the fear in Queen Catherine’s eyes. I could tell she was wondering if he noticed the change in them, how they sagged a little more after each disappointment she endured.

I felt a sudden sadness as I stood back in the shadows and contemplated the couple before me. Queen Catherine was right—mirrors do not lie. When they had married the difference in their ages seemed paltry and insignificant. Four years ago, they had both been young and golden, but, suddenly, seemingly overnight, only one of them was young and golden. King Henry was still in his lusty, golden prime, while my beloved Queen Catherine had become an old woman with silver strands amongst the gold and deep lines upon her face I doubted any cream, lotion, or elixir could erase.

Old gold is still gold, I tried to tell myself. Beneath the tarnish, silver is still silver. But no, I could not make myself believe. Mirrors do not lie. And I had seen with my own eyes the ravishes time and childbearing had wrought upon my person. I was a woman too; I
knew
.

I shivered with foreboding. I knew in my heart that they were doomed. They had grown apart in other ways too. It was folly to pretend otherwise, to try to play hide-and-seek with the truth, when the mirror’s reflection was staring me in the face.

The passion that had once burned so brightly between Henry and Catherine had dimmed to a mere flicker through time and familiarity; duty had long ago eclipsed desire. The desperate need for a son had surpassed their desire for each other. And Queen Catherine had spent so much time sitting out dances when she was with child that, between pregnancies when her womb was empty and she was able, she had forgotten—and in her sorrow lost all desire—to dance again. So she let other women—willing, amorous, and ambitious women younger and prettier than the golden Queen, who had now lost her youth and luster—partner her husband instead. A grave mistake, I thought, but I said nothing.

Then King Ferdinand undid all the good he had done them. He chose to abandon the French campaign and leave Henry in the lurch. When Henry found out, he blasted Queen Catherine with his anger, like a dragon belching fire, while we ladies quailed back, fearing his wrath would burn and blind her. But she stood straight and stoically endured her terrible shame, taking the blame because she was there and her father wasn’t.

“Henceforth, I alone shall rule England with Wolsey to help me!” he bellowed. “I want no more advice from you, or your damnable, duplicitous, interfering father, madame! England shall be all for England, not a vassal of Spain as your duplicitous father would have it! I am master here, and the King of England bows to no master save God! And you may tell your father that, madame!”

The damage was irreparable. She had lost all his confidence. The trust was broken. He would no longer discuss statecraft and strategy with her as had always been his custom. Now Wolsey would take her place, shaping the destiny of England, while she was set aside as just another royal ornament, a decoration, sitting on her pretty gilded throne, to smile and nod and dispense kind words and welcome visitors and ambassadors to the court, bestow smiles and charity on the English people, and give alms and gifts of shirts and shifts to the poor that she, alongside us, her devoted ladies, had labored long in sewing. All her
real
power and influence were gone forever, and everyone knew it.

6

A
lthough I truly sympathized with all Queen Catherine’s sorrows, by then I had my
own
happiness to think of, and I refused, as selfish as it may sound, to let the Queen’s sorrows dampen or taint it.

I was what I had always wanted to be—admired and adored. Many men wanted to be my lover, and some I deigned to discreetly favor. But there was one I set above all others, one whose embraces and the rare, sweet times we spent together I truly savored. For me, it was
much
more than my usual, casual carnal diversion; those were all mere indulgences of the flesh to while away the boredom and fill the tedious hours of one who had so easily grown jaded.

The doll maker, Remi Jouet, was now my lover, the one I favored and desired above all men. I called him “my
jou-jou,
” “my plaything,” speaking those words in the sweetest, most affectionate sense.

His warm as new baked bread, doughy soft, pink and white body was the
most
delightful toy to while away the languid afternoons with. I
loved
exploring it, watching the way shyness warred with boldness inside him. I
adored
every ample inch of him, and the sweet, tender soul inside. He made my pulses race as no one else ever did. I reveled in his pillowy soft embrace and the way he filled and fulfilled me in a way that no one else, neither highborn nor low, ever did. To me, he was truly, uniquely, in a class all his own. I loved to playfully nip the sweet fleshy lobes of his ears, half-hidden beneath the waves of his rich brown hair, so dark that in some lights it might have been mistaken for black, and to tease him about the talisman of red coral, carved into the shape of a tiny horn—“or perhaps a red pepper; which is it, my dear?”—that he wore on a leather cord about his neck alongside a little silver cross. I asked him which he trusted in more—“Luck or God?” and smiled when he explained that he wore the coral in fond remembrance of his grandmother, a very superstitious Frenchwoman, yet marvelous and magical, and so very kind, who had fastened the bit of coral about his throat to protect him from all harm and evil before the midwife even had a chance to wash the birthing blood off him and lay him in his mother’s loving arms.

And yes, oh yes, honesty behooves me to confess, I
gloried
in cuckolding my parvenu spouse, that shopkeeper’s grandson, so eager to shed his mercantile origins, with an actual shopkeeper, an artisan whose large, powerful hands were work-roughened and coarse from making play pretties for little children, yet capable of the most infinite tenderness when they caressed me—unless I was in a mood for roughness, to be bruised by his kisses and the grasp of those powerful hands around my slender wrists, or on my limbs as he raised them to his shoulders just before plunging into me, doubling me up, until I didn’t know if it was breathlessness or pleasure that made me feel so gloriously giddy and faint, as though my head might fall off the edge of the bed and roll away like a child’s toy ball. What fun we had! It was the best bed sport ever (and I have had experience enough to make that claim with some authority).

Our affair began shortly after I took up residence at court, when, while spending an idle afternoon shopping in London, I suddenly turned onto the street where his shop had been. It was still there! How my heart raced. But was
he
still there? Shops are bought and sold, or inherited, and change hands all the time. There was only
one
way to find out.

Boldly, I squared my shoulders, thrust my chin haughty high, and barged brazenly through the door. And there he was! All dressed in rusty, rumpled black, just as I remembered him, leaning on the counter, brow puckered in concentration beneath a wing of dark hair, intent on some bit of carving, a face taking shape beneath the blade of his knife. Was it possible? He seemed not to have changed at all! Time is so much kinder to men! I silently pouted, cursing the marks childbearing had left upon my beautiful body. He was just as I remembered him.
Exactly
like the picture I had carried in my heart all these years.

I walked right up to him, my head held high and proud, confident as a queen, my blue velvet skirts swishing over the rough wooden floor.

“Whatever became of the doll you promised me?” I demanded as though mere weeks instead of several years had passed since I had last been inside his shop. “Do you always take this many years to fulfill your commissions? If so, it is a wonder that you are still in business, Master Jouet!”

“A moment, my lady,” he said softly with a shy smile and bowed and withdrew into the back room.

He emerged cradling a bundle of celestial blue silk that he sat carefully upon the counter. Slowly, he unwrapped it, revealing the most elegant and exquisite doll I had ever seen—it was me! It was an
exact
likeness of myself at sixteen, with a face of patrician perfection and beautiful hands of carved and painted alabaster, a weighty cascade of night-black hair crowned with a chaplet of sapphire blue glass beads, gold lovers’ knots, and white pearls, and a gown of sumptuous sapphire blue velvet bordered with black velvet upon which rows of gold braid lovers’ knots were stitched. The full skirt fell gracefully over layered silk petticoats, and this miniature me was daintily shod in black velvet slippers with gold braid lovers’ knots on the toes and deep blue stockings with a gold lovers’ knot embroidered over each ankle. She even wore a strand of pearls with a sapphire shaped like a vivid blue tear dangling in the hollow between her alabaster breasts and a gold lovers’ knot brooch set with pearls.

He would have placed her in my arms, like a midwife proudly presenting a newborn to her mother, but I moved faster. I grasped the soft, well-worn collar of his black doublet and kissed him with a furious hunger as I pulled him after me into the back room and we toppled together onto the disarrayed motley-colored quilt that covered his humble bed. We shed our clothes, I with wild abandon, and he shyly and maddeningly slowly at first until I threatened to rip the buttons and ties and tear the cloth that kept his flesh from me away with my teeth if he didn’t strip himself bare for me and quickly. I was
ravenous
for him! I pushed him onto his back, ignoring and kissing away the self-deprecating jest he made about his soft, fish-belly white body looking like a beached whale.

“You look
delicious!
” I said. “Your body is as warm, soft, and comforting as fresh baked bread.” I straddled him like a wishbone, my thighs straining, feeling poised to snap but
gloriously
glad of it, because my wish was already coming true. He loved me hard and fast, rough and then exquisitely, achingly tender, and when he paused uncertainly and asked me if he should withdraw without spending his seed, I grabbed his hair in two hard handfuls and yanked him back down to me and held him tight until he cried out my name—
Elizabeth!
—in a passion-choked whisper.

Afterward, we lay together and slept, our lust spent. The stars were poised to come out when at last I stood, letting him lace me back into my corset and gown. I was never less eager to say the word
farewell
or to return to the court I had spent years yearning to be at, when he kissed me tenderly and stepped out of his shop to hail a coach to take me back to my husband and my life as a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. That day brought new meaning to those three words—lady-in-waiting—for this lady would be most impatiently awaiting the next time we could be together, I told him, squeezing his hand as he helped me into the carriage.

 

One day shortly after that first delicious afternoon, I took my children to visit his shop during one of their rare and infrequent visits to London. I hadn’t planned to; it was one of those sudden impulses I was prey to. “The only thing certain about Elizabeth Boleyn is uncertain,” those who knew me often said.

Mary was then about seven, if I remember rightly—dates and figures have never been my strong point—and George and Anne were six and five.

My golden girl, with her pink cheeks, rosebud mouth, amber eyes, and vibrant, bouncy, spun gold curls, was so beautiful in her new gown of rose brocade that the moment the nurse brought her prancing in to me, skipping and spinning to show off her new array, with green-gowned Anne and dark, moody George following hand in hand sullenly in her wake, I knew I wanted to ask Remi to make a doll of my sunshine girl, so that even when she was an old woman, crookbacked and haggard, with her gold all turned to silver, her pearly teeth lost or turned to ugly, blackened stumps, cruel lines marring the face that had formerly been porcelain smooth, and her breasts and belly sagging from a life spent in childbearing, her beauty would never be entirely lost; she could look at that doll, cherish it, hold it in her arms, and remember just how beautiful she had been in her glorious youth. I wanted to give her that gift just as Remi had given it to me. I wanted her beauty to become something she could, in this unique way, keep forever and pass on to her children.

As my little brood flitted about his shop, eyes wide with wonder, forgetting their good manners as all children in the presence of toys are wont to do, Remi’s hand moved, swift and sure, sketching them from various angles. He gave equal attention to all three. To my surprise, he didn’t seem as enamored with my golden girl as I had expected him to be. I was so accustomed to people gushing and making a fuss over her beauty, I was astonished that my lover, a true artist with an eye for beauty, didn’t put her on a pedestal and sing her praises.

“Your children are beautiful,” he said softly.

“Well,
two
of them.” I shrugged and sighed, shaking my head yet again over my ugly dark duckling Anne.

“Three,”
Remi corrected me firmly. “Give her time; she will surprise you. A moment will come when you expect the ugly duckling and will see instead a beautiful, graceful swan, but not just any swan—a
black
swan!” I blinked and stepped back, incredulous at his enthusiasm. “Beauty is not always at first apparent,” he continued, “and, when it blossoms too early so too it often withers; it rarely lasts a lifetime, but elegance and grace, such as yours, Elizabeth, endure forever.”

It always amazed me that Remi could see such promise in Anne when no one else did; it was as though everyone else was blind or none of us were looking at the same little girl.

“I will believe it when I see it,” I said and went on to tell him that I suspected my youngest daughter was destined for the nunnery, to be a bride of Christ since no other man, certainly not one of wealth, breeding, and discerning taste, was likely to want her.

At these words, Remi laughed and said he would wager his shop that the bleak future I predicted for Anne would never come to pass.

“Just you wait”—he nodded knowingly—“she will astonish you all! That ebony hair will
never
be shorn beneath a wimple; I would stake my shop upon it!”

“If so, ’twill be a
very great
surprise indeed. I’m far more inclined to suspect you need spectacles, my love.” I snorted my disbelief, leaning against the counter and watching Anne cradle a doll that was everything she wasn’t—blond and beautiful with a complexion like pink roses and cream—while George cantered about on a black velvet hobby horse with a mane and tail of flowing gilt tinsel, and Mary marveled, her mouth a perfect pink
O
framing the dainty pearls of her teeth, at the exquisite, tiny dolls that decorated sewing boxes, needle cases, trinket boxes, and pincushions, like the one on my dressing table that I cherished and had so many times slapped her hands away from.

Soon I grew weary of watching the children play. After allowing them each to choose something for themselves, I sent them away with their nurse and spent the rest of that sweet afternoon with Remi in the back room of his shop. Such were the delicious delights of an afternoon in London!

 

And so the years passed for me, condoling with the Queen, flirting and dancing with the King and his courtiers, provoking the jealousy and envy of the ladies, being the beautiful, gracious ornament my husband expected me to be, and loving Remi in secret.

Then a moment came when it all seemed poised to change—for better or worse, I could not then of a surety say.

On May Day, King Henry, accompanied by the gentlemen of his bedchamber and a troupe of musicians, all of them masked, crowned with sprightly feathered hats, and dressed from head to toe in Lincoln green, as Robin Hood and his Merry Men, came dancing into Queen Catherine’s chamber.

In the center of the room, with his musicians and Merry Men behind him, King Henry stopped and sang.

When he was done, we all applauded. What a talented man our sovereign was, we all most flatteringly marveled; not only could he sing, but he wrote lyrics and set them to music as well. He was, we averred, the finest singer and writer of songs at court, mayhap in all of England. “And France,” my husband, ever the favor-currying diplomat, added, knowing full well how much this compliment would please His Majesty.