Читать книгу The King’s Mistress - Darcey Bonnette - Страница 6

PROLOGUE

An Entrance

Elizabeth Stafford Howard, spring 1519

He is pulling my hair—it is going to be torn from my scalp, I am sure of it. I struggle and fight against him. The pains grip my womb. I cup my rounded belly with one hand and claw my husband’s wrist with the other.

“Let me go!” I cry. “Please! The baby is coming! You’re going to hurt the baby!”

He says nothing but continues to pull me off the bed by my hair. It hurts … oh, it hurts. To my horror I see the glint of his dagger as he removes it from its sheath. He lowers it in one wild gesture, striking my head near where he is pulling my hair. I am unsure of his aims. Is he going to chop my hair off? Is he going to chop me up?

“Stop …” I beg as he continues to drag me about the house in front of cold-eyed servants who do not interfere with his “discipline.”

At long last he drops me on the cold stone floor in front of my bedchamber. The pains are coming closer together. I am writhing in agony. The wound on my head is bleeding. Warm red liquid runs down my face into my eyes.

He walks away.

When his footfalls can no longer be heard a servant comes forward to help me to my bed. It is safe now, I suppose. The midwife, cowering in a corner, inches forward.

“What on God’s earth could you have done to warrant that man’s displeasure?” she asks in her country accent as she wipes clean my face and attends to the dagger wound.

I look at her in despair. “I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “I never know.”

And this is how my child enters this world. I name her Mary, after the Blessed Virgin. Perhaps so named, God will show her more favor than He has condescended to show me.