The Secret Bride (9 page)

As two of the king’s guards moved a step nearer, Jane rose and excused herself to keep Mary from embarrassing herself more than she had done already. As Jane stumbled out onto the steps, the countess called out a final directive.

“And you are to advise Lady Guildford that Mistress Popincourt is to be soundly enough flogged so that she shall not again speak so vulgarly.”

After the jousts, Mary attended the banquet meekly as she had been expected to do. She waited what felt like an eternity for her grandmother to drink enough wine, then begin dancing with the Earl of Northumberland so that she could slip away undetected. By the time Mary found Jane, she was alone in just her shift and stockings, lying on her bed in the small chamber next to Mary’s own. There was darkness but for moonlight that shone like a beacon through the window. Still Mary knew Jane would be awake. She lit a candle lamp and set it down onto the table beside Jane. Her face was red and swollen from weeping and her wide blue eyes were brightened with tears as she lay on her back looking blankly up at the ceiling.

“I am so sorry,” Mary whispered, aching for her friend.

“Not half so sorry as I. I’ll not be caught again. I’ll be more careful because I mean to live my life at court by my own rules. I believe I shall begin by seducing your brother the first moment I have a chance.”

“I would rather you didn’t.”

“I shall make my own happiness in this world. And so should you!”

“All right,” Mary said. But she did not mean it. At least not back then.

Mary spent her days that first year of 1509 at court primarily in the company of Jane and Katherine, the three of them being heavily supervised in embroidery, dancing, French, cards, etiquette and music, by the Countess of Richmond. While Katherine never spoke of her feelings for Henry during those long, mainly mild winter days, heading toward spring, both she and Jane could see them in her every look and glance.

The sad romance of it all made them pity Katherine, knowing that if something did not happen soon, she would be forced to return to Spain, and the king could not be bothered even to be civilized toward her.

“What is it between you and Katherine?” Mary asked Henry one mild afternoon as they strolled together beneath a clear broad sky. They moved evenly out through the privy gardens, between the neatly clipped hedgerows, where the yew trees had been formed into the fanciful shapes of animals for the king’s pleasure. They were with a large group of Henry’s friends, including Charles Brandon, Thomas Knyvet and Jane, who ambled a few paces behind them, giving brother and sister a moment of privacy.

“Katherine is my good sister, as you are, and she is in need of kindness just now. That is all,” he equivocated, glancing back at her, but she saw him catch Jane’s eye instead.

Mary turned around as well and saw Katherine, who had seen the little exchange. But she only turned and spoke in a whisper to Dona Elvira—too proud to acknowledge it.

“That is all?” she repeated on a note of disbelief.

“Very well. You always could see through me,” he con-ceded a moment later, with a toss of his head and a crooked half smile. The pale sun highlighted the red-gold strands in his tousled golden hair, and his eyes glittered at her with absolute sincerity. “I do care for her, Mary. I care for her a great deal. And she cares for me. But the king is immovable on the notion of our marrying now. And he means absolutely to see her returned to Spain.”

“You actually wish to marry one who was, for a time, chosen for you?”

“Peculiar as that seems.”

“Then it is a great tragedy.”

“Rather, it shall be a gloriously romantic tale
if
I can think of a way to stall her return.”

She understood then. Her brother was stubborn and, like her, generally most wanted the things he could not have.

Strangely, though he could have had any girl at court, Henry seemed far more interested in securing a wife than a paramour.

“Father
is
unwell.”

“And
you
are the very picture of strength and health.”

“The old die away as the young come to full bloom. Just like you, sweet sister. Just look at the beauty you have become already,” he declared with a strangely easy smile, touching her cheek with a long finger that bore a gold and ruby ring that had once belonged to Henry V, famous for the battle of Agincourt.

“There are grand things in store for the two of us, Mary.”

“You shall be king and I shall be chattel,” Mary said with a sudden frown.

Henry laughed in that robust way, deep and full of spirit, that she loved. “Ah, no. When it is my turn, I suspect I shall make you a queen.”

“You told me once you would keep me here with you.  Name a great ship after me.”

“That was a childhood fantasy. Surely you knew that. But there will still be a ship. And perhaps some wonderful king to give you to.”

“I am betrothed to the Prince of Castile and you well know it,” Mary shot back, angry that her brother should toy with her in that way when she had no control over anything in her life, yet the world would one day belong to him. 

“The only thing constant, my Mary, is change.”

They walked a bit farther, out past the octagonal wooden pavilion and the little lane of fruit trees, pear and cherry, beyond. But they were close enough still to hear the lute player who had begun to strum a tune for the others back beside the splashing stone fountain.

“I need you to show me a kindness.”

“Anything,” Mary replied.

“Do you have a dress with which you could part? One of those exceptionally pretty new ones I have seen you wearing here at Richmond?”

She glanced at Katherine, surrounded by her sober-looking group of Spanish attendants, and knew that what she had thought before was true. The once elegant green silk dress she wore now almost daily, lined with brocade and ornamented with exquisite dark Spanish lace, had become noticeably frayed at the hem and sleeves, and the bodice was increasingly threadbare. It looked oddly out of place on so regal and proud a girl as Katherine. Still, her thick waves of black hair were done up meticulously away from her soft rounded face by Dona Elvira, as if Katherine were Queen of Spain. Thinking about what she was being forced to endure because of her own father, Mary felt angry, and defiant. Like Henry, she wanted to do anything to help her, and keep Katherine with them.

“Which would become her most?” she asked her brother.

“You have but to choose. Anything I have is hers.”

A smile broadened his face and she saw that happy, carefree Henry reemerge, the one she adored. “I owe you a great deal, my Mary.”

“You do at that! But one day I shall find a way for you to repay me,” she said, smiling in response. Of course she had agreed out of devotion to them both, and she did not mean he actually owed her anything. At least not then.

Two days later, Mary watched Jane burst out of the maze suddenly, as though someone had pushed her. Jane was out of breath, her pale hair wispy and springing out in random places from her small French hood. In the shallow silver of afternoon light, Mary was close enough to see that Jane’s nose and cheeks were flushed pink, her delicate lips were chapped, and she was smoothing out her skirts.

Mary had been walking with Lady Guildford out near the pond, and past the stone urns newly filled with bright pansies and forget-me-nots on a day that was cooler than the others. Not seeing them, Jane paused. When Mary took a step toward her, prepared to speak, Lady Guildford clutched her arm firmly, drawing her back.

An instant later, Henry emerged from the maze. He paused as Jane had done, but for only an instant. He glanced both ways, and then went on in the opposite direction, not seeing his sister. Everyone by now knew Henry was in love with Katherine. This, whatever it was, could only bring Jane heartbreak.

“Leave it be, child,” Mother Guildford counseled as Mary moved again to go to her friend.

“But I—”

“Some things are better left unseen.”

“But I
have
seen it! Jane will need my counsel.”

“Best to wait, child. She shall need your shoulder more.”

Suddenly, as Mary looked back, Jane did see her. The eyes of the two friends met, neither of them able to remember any longer being without the other in their lives. The only sound in that awkward instant was of the splashing fountain, and a soft breeze as it stirred the fabric of her small headdress.

Was it pure girlish rebellion that had led Jane to something so foolish? Or did she really believe that Henry could actually care for her? They said physical attraction was strong enough to make a young girl believe it was love, but Jane had always seemed wiser to Mary than to have given in to that—a girl more certain to find a future of her own making. Would Jane Popincourt, with the sweet laugh and the vulnerable smile, ever be content as a royal mistress when she had yet to find her own true love, the way the two of them had always dreamed? They were yet all so untested by life, Katherine, Jane, Henry and herself.

“Why would he do that to her?” Mary heard herself ask, without turning back.

“Men are a different breed, child. And a prince who shall be king is something altogether different even from that.

They are entitled.”

“As he believes he is entitled to with Katherine?”

“That as well. He will need that strength one day to rule.

So do not be too hard on him.”

“And will he need the hubris that goes along with it?”

“I suspect he shall indeed.”

“But what of Jane?” Mary pressed, her heart aching for her friend.

“She is expendable. As are we all. Except, perhaps, you.

No one shall ever be able to use you in that way. Remember, your father is king.”

“My life is not my own to make.”

“No, you have been raised to know that well enough,”

she answered patiently. “But if you listen well, mistakes are not yours to make either. There will be people to counsel and guide you in every aspect of your life. You should find some comfort in that.”

And boredom in it, Mary thought. Having other people guide her life all the way through, at this moment, seemed like the very worst thing in the world.

They walked slowly back into the house, the servants they passed dropping into perfunctory curtsies and bows as they passed. Mary rarely noticed the required business of life. It just had always been there. Like the rules. And she had broken so few. Only now had the reality of that begun to seem the littlest bit stifling to her after having watched Jane do something on her own that was entirely, utterly wrong.