Читать книгу The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory - Страница 9

In the middle of my third month of exile, the month of June, with the garden of Hever filled with heavy-headed roses and their scent hanging in the air like smoke, I had a letter from Anne.

It is done. I have put myself in his way and talked about you. I have told him that you miss him unbearably and you are pining for him. I have told him that you have displeased your family by showing too openly your love for him and you have been sent away to forget him. Such is the contrary nature of men that he is much excited at the thought of you in distress. Anyway, you can come back to court. We are at Windsor. Father says you can order half a dozen men from the castle to escort you and come at once. Make sure that you arrive quietly before dinner and come straight to our room where I will tell you how you are to behave.

Windsor Castle, one of Henry’s prettiest castles, sat on the green hill like a grey pearl on velvet, the king’s standard fluttering from the turret, the drawbridge open, and a continual coming and going of carts and pedlars and brewers’ drays and wagons. The court sucked the wealth out of the countryside wherever it rested and Windsor was experienced in servicing the profitable appetites of the castle.

I slipped into a side door and found my way to Anne’s rooms, avoiding anyone who knew me. Her room was empty. I settled myself down to wait. As I had expected, at three o’clock she came into the room, pulling her hood off her hair. She jumped when she saw me.

‘I thought you were a ghost! What a fright you gave me.’

‘You told me to come privately to your room.’

‘Yes, I wanted to tell you how things are. I was speaking to the king just a moment ago. We were in the tiltyard watching Lord Percy. Mon dieu! It’s so hot!’

‘What did he say?’

‘Lord Percy? Oh he was enchanting.’

‘No, the king.’

Anne smiled, deliberately provoking. ‘He was asking about you.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘Let me think.’ She tossed her hood on the bed and shook her hair free. It tumbled in a dark wave down her back and she swept it up in one hand to leave her neck cool. ‘Oh, I can’t remember. It’s too hot.’

I was too experienced in Anne’s teasing to let her torment me. I sat quietly in the little wooden chair by the empty fireplace and did not turn my head while she washed her face and splashed her arms and neck and tied her hair back again, with many exclamations in French and complaints about the heat. Nothing made me look around.

‘I think I can remember now,’ she offered.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I’ll see him myself at dinner. He can tell me anything he wants to tell me then. I don’t need you.’

She bridled at that at once. ‘Oh yes you do! How will you behave? You don’t know what to say!’

‘I knew enough to have him head over heels in love with me and ask for my kerchief,’ I observed coolly. ‘I should think I know enough to talk to him civilly after dinner.’

Anne stepped back and measured me. ‘You’re very calm,’ was all she said.

‘I’ve had time to think,’ I replied levelly. ‘And?’

‘I know what I want.’ She waited.

‘I want him,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘Every woman in England wants him. I never thought that you would prove exceptional.’

I shrugged off the snub. ‘And I know that I can live without him.’

Her gaze narrowed. ‘You’ll be ruined, if William doesn’t take you back.’

‘I could bear that too,’ I rejoined. ‘I liked it at Hever. I liked riding out every day and walking round the gardens. I was on my own there for nearly three months, and I’ve never been on my own in my whole life before. I realised that I don’t need the court and the queen and the king or even you. I liked riding out and looking at the farmland, I liked talking to the farmers and watching their crops and seeing how things grow.’

‘You want to become a farmer?’ she laughed scornfully.

‘I could be happy as a farmer,’ I said steadily. ‘I’m in love with the king –’ I snatched a breath ‘– oh, very much. But if it all goes wrong, I could live on a little farm and be happy.’

Anne went to the chest at the foot of the bed and drew out a new hood. She watched herself in the mirror as she smoothed back her hair and drew on the headdress. At once her dramatic dark looks took on a new elegance. She knew it, of course.

‘If I were in your shoes it would be the king or nothing for me,’ she said. ‘I’d put my neck on the block for a chance at him.’

‘I want the man. Not because he’s king.’

She shrugged. ‘They’re one and the same thing. You can’t desire him like an ordinary man and forget the crown on his head. He’s the best there is. There is no greater man than him in the kingdom. You’d have to go to France for King Francis or Spain for the emperor to find his equal.’

I shook my head. ‘I’ve seen the emperor and the French king and I wouldn’t look twice at either of them.’

Anne turned from the glass and tugged her bodice down a little lower so that the curve of her breasts showed. ‘Then you’re a fool,’ she said simply.

When we were ready she led me to the queen’s chambers. ‘She’ll accept you back, but she won’t give you a warm welcome,’ Anne threw over her shoulder as the soldiers before the queen’s door saluted us, and held the double doors open. The two of us, the Boleyn girls, walked in as if we owned half the castle.

The queen was sitting in the windowseat, the windows flung wide open for the cooler evening air. Her musician was beside her, singing as he played his lute. Her women were around her, some of them sewing, some of them sitting idle, waiting for the summons to dinner. She looked perfectly at peace with the world, surrounded by friends, in her husband’s home, looking out from her window over the little town of Windsor and the pewter-coloured curve of the river beyond. When she saw me her face did not change. She was too well-trained to betray her disappointment. She gave me a small smile. ‘Ah, Mistress Carey,’ she said. ‘You are recovered and returned to court?’

I sank into a curtsey. ‘If it please Your Majesty.’

‘You have been at your parents’ home, all this long time?’

‘Yes. At Hever Castle, Your Majesty.’

‘You must have rested well. There is nothing in that part of the world but sheep and cows, I think?’

I smiled. ‘It is farmland,’ I agreed. ‘But there was much for me to do. I enjoyed riding out and looking at the fields and talking to the men who work them.’

For a moment, I could see that she was intrigued by the thought of the land, which after all her years in England she still only saw as a place for hunting and picnics and the summer progress. But she remembered why I had left court in the first place. ‘Did His Majesty order your return?’

I heard a little warning hiss from Anne behind me but I disregarded it. I had a romantic, foolish thought, that I did not want to look this good woman in her honest eyes and lie to her. ‘The king sent for me, Your Majesty,’ I said respectfully.

She nodded and looked down at her hands where they were quietly clasped in her lap. ‘Then you are fortunate,’ was all she said.

There was a brief silence. I wanted very much to tell her that I had fallen in love with her husband but I knew that she was far above me. She was a woman whose spirit had been hammered and forged until she could only ring true. Compared with the rest of us she was silver, while we were pewter, a common mixture of lead and tin.

The great double doors swung open. ‘His Majesty the king!’ the herald announced and Henry strolled into the room. ‘I am come to lead you into dinner,’ he started, and then he saw me and stopped in his tracks. The queen’s considering gaze flicked from his transfixed face to mine and back again.

‘Mary,’ he exclaimed.

I forgot even to curtsey. I just stared at him.

A little warning tut from Anne failed to recall me. The king crossed the room in three long strides and took my hands in his, and held them to his chest. I felt the scratch of his embroidered doublet under my fingers, the caress of his silk shirt through the slashings.

‘My love,’ he said in a low whisper. ‘You are welcome back to court.’

‘I thank you …’

‘They told me that you were sent away to learn a lesson. Did I do right to say you could come back unlearned?’

‘Yes. Yes. Perfectly right,’ I stumbled.

‘You were not scolded?’ he pressed.

I gave a little laugh and looked up at his intent blue gaze. ‘No. They were a little cross with me, but that was all.’

‘You wanted to come back to court?’

‘Oh yes.’

The queen rose to her feet. ‘So. Let us go to dinner, ladies,’ she said generally. Henry threw a quick glance at her over his shoulder. She held out her hand to him, imperious as a daughter of Spain. He turned to her with the old habit of devotion and obedience and I could not think how to recapture him. I stepped behind her and bent low to arrange the train of her gown while she stood, queenly; despite her stockiness, beautiful; despite the weariness in her face.

‘Thank you, Mistress Carey,’ she said gently. And then she led us in to dinner with her hand resting lightly on her husband’s arm, and he inclined his head to her to hear something she said, and he did not look back at me again.

George greeted me at the end of dinner, strolling to the queen’s table where we ladies were seated with wine and sweetmeats before us. He brought me a sugared plum. ‘Sweets for the sweet,’ he said, planting a kiss on my forehead.

‘Oh George,’ I said. ‘Thank you for your note.’

‘You were bombarding me with desperate cries,’ he said. ‘Three letters I got from you in the first week. Was it so awful?’

‘The first week was,’ I said. ‘But then I became accustomed. By the end of the first month I was rather taking to the country life.’

‘Well, we all did our best for you here,’ he said.

‘Is Uncle at court?’ I asked, looking around. ‘I don’t see him.’

‘No, in London with Wolsey. But he knows all that is going on, don’t you worry. He said to tell you that he will be hearing reports of you and he trusts you now know how to behave.’

Jane Parker leaned across the table. ‘Are you going to be a lady in waiting?’ she asked George. ‘For you are sitting at our table and on a lady’s stool.’

George rose unhurriedly. ‘I beg your pardon, ladies. I did not mean to intrude.’

Half a dozen voices assured him that he did not intrude. My brother was a handsome young man and a popular visitor to the queen’s rooms. No-one but his sour-tongued betrothed objected to him joining our table.

He bowed over her hand. ‘Mistress Parker, thank you for reminding me to leave you,’ he said courteously, his irritation clear behind his sweet tones. He bent and kissed me firmly on the lips. ‘God speed you, little Marianne,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘You are carrying the hopes of your family.’

I caught his hand as he was about to go. ‘Wait, George, I wanted to ask you something.’

He turned back. ‘What?’

I tugged at his hand to make him lean down to me so that I could whisper in his ear. ‘Do you think that he loves me?’

‘Oh,’ he said, straightening up. ‘Oh, love.’

‘Well, do you?’

He shrugged. ‘Whatever does it mean? We write poems about it all day and sing songs about it all night but if there is such a thing in real life I’m damned if I know.’

‘Oh George!’

‘He wants you, I can tell you that. He’s prepared to go through a degree of trouble to have you. If that means love to you then yes, he loves you.’

‘That’s enough for me,’ I said with quiet satisfaction. ‘Wants me, and is prepared to go through a degree of trouble. That sounds like love to me.’

My handsome brother bowed. ‘If you say so, Mary. If that is good enough for you.’ He straightened up and immediately stepped back. ‘Your Majesty.’

The king stood before me. ‘George, I cannot allow you to spend the evening talking to your sister, you are the envy of the court.’

‘I am,’ George said with all his courtier charm. ‘Two beautiful sisters and not a care in the world.’

‘I thought we should have some dancing,’ the king said. ‘Will you lead out Mistress Boleyn and I will take care of Mistress Carey, here?’

‘I should be delighted,’ George said. Without looking around for her, he snapped his fingers and, alert as ever, Anne appeared at his side.

‘We’re to dance,’ he said shortly.

The king waved his hand and the musicians struck up a quick country dance so we arranged ourselves in a ring of eight people and started the flowing steps first one way then the other. At the opposite side of the circle I saw George’s familiar beloved face and, beside him, Anne’s smooth smile. She looked as she did when she was studying a new book. She was reading the king’s mood as carefully as she might look at a psalter. She was looking from him to me as if to measure the urgency of his desire. And, while never turning her head, she was checking the mood of the queen, trying to get an idea of what she had seen or what she felt.

I smiled to myself. Anne had met her match in the queen, I thought. No-one could penetrate beneath the veneer of the daughter of Spain. Anne was a courtier beyond all others but she had been born a commoner. Queen Katherine had been born a princess. From the moment she could talk she had been taught to guard her tongue. From the moment she could walk she had been taught to step carefully and speak kindly to both rich and poor, for you never knew when you might need both rich and poor. Queen Katherine had been a player in a highly competitive, highly wealthy court before Anne had even been born.

Anne might look around all she liked to see how the queen was bearing up under the sight of me, close to the king, our gazes locked on each other, desire very hot between us. Anne might look; but the queen never betrayed any emotion more than polite interest. She clapped at the end of the dances and once or twice cried out congratulations. And then suddenly the dance ended, and Henry and I were left stranded without musicians playing, without other dancers encircling us and hiding us. We were left alone, exposed, still handclasped with his eyes on my face and me looking up at him in silence, locked together as if we might stay that way forever.

‘Bravo,’ said the queen, her voice completely steady and confident. ‘Very pretty.’

‘He’ll send for you,’ Anne said that night as we undressed in the room. She shook out her dress and laid it carefully in the chest at the foot of the bed, her hood at the other end, her shoes carefully set side by side under the bed. She pulled on her night shift and sat before the mirror to brush her hair.

She handed the brush to me and she closed her eyes as I set about the long strokes from head to waist.

‘Perhaps tonight, perhaps during the day tomorrow. You’ll go.’

‘Of course I’ll go,’ I said.

‘Well, remember who you are,’ Anne warned. ‘Don’t let him just have you in a doorway or somewhere hidden and hurried. Insist on proper rooms, insist on a proper bed.’

‘I’ll see,’ I said.

‘It’s important,’ she cautioned me. ‘If he thinks he can take you like a slut then he’ll have you and forget you. If anything, I think you should hold out a little longer. If he thinks you’re too easy he’ll not have you more than once or twice.’

I took her soft hanks of hair in my hand and plaited them.

‘Ow,’ she complained. ‘You’re pulling.’

‘Well, you’re nagging,’ I said. ‘Leave me to do it my way, Anne. I’ve not done so badly so far.’

‘Oh that.’ She shrugged her white shoulders and smiled at her reflection in the mirror. ‘Anyone can attract a man. The trick is to keep him.’

The knock at the door startled us both. Anne’s dark eyes flew to the mirror, to my reflected image looking blankly back at her.

‘Not the king?’

I was already opening the door.

George was standing there, in the red suede doublet he had worn at dinner, the white fine linen shirt gleaming through the slashings, the red cap embroidered with pearls on his dark head.

‘Vivat! Vivat Marianne!’ He came quickly in and closed the door behind him. ‘He asked me to invite you to take a glass of wine with him. I’m to apologise for the lateness of the hour, the Venetian ambassador has only just left. They talked of nothing but war with France and now he is filled with passion for England, Henry and St George. I’m to assure you that you’re free to make your choice. You can take a glass of wine and come back to your own bed. You’re to be your own mistress.’

‘Any offer?’ Anne asked.

George raised a supercilious eyebrow. ‘Show a little elegance,’ he reprimanded her. ‘He’s not buying her outright. He’s inviting her for a glass of wine. We’ll fix the price later on.’

I put my hand to my head. ‘My hood!’ I exclaimed. ‘Anne, quick! Plait up my hair.’

She shook her head. ‘Go as you are,’ she said. ‘With your hair down around your shoulders. You look like a virgin on your wedding day. I’m right, aren’t I, George? That’s what he wants.’

He nodded. ‘She’s lovely like that. Loosen her bodice a bit.’

‘She’s supposed to be a lady.’

‘Just a bit,’ he suggested. ‘A man likes a glimpse of what he’s buying.’

Anne untied the laces at the back of my bodice until the boned stomacher was a little looser. She tugged it down at the waist so it sat lower and more invitingly. George nodded. ‘Perfect.’

She stepped back and looked at me as critically as my father had looked at the mare he had sent to the stallion. ‘Anything else?’

George shook his head.

‘She’d better wash,’ Anne suddenly decided. ‘Under her arms and her cunny at least.’

I would have appealed to George. But he was nodding, as intent as a farmer. ‘Yes, you should. He has a horror of anything rank.’

‘Go on.’ Anne gestured to the jug and ewer.

‘You two go out,’ I said.

George turned for the door. ‘We’ll wait outside.’

‘And your bum,’ Anne said as he closed the door. ‘Don’t skimp on it, Mary. You’ve got to be clean all over.’

The closing door cut off my response which was not that of a young lady. I washed myself briskly in cold water and rubbed myself dry. I took some of Anne’s flower water and patted it on my neck and hair and on the tops of my legs. Then I opened the door.

‘Are you clean?’ Anne asked sharply.

I nodded.

She looked at me anxiously. ‘Go on then. And you can resist for a bit, you know. Show a little doubt. Don’t just fall into his arms.’

I turned my face away from her. She seemed to me quite unbearably crass about the whole matter.

‘The girl can have a bit of pleasure,’ George said gently.

Anne rounded on him. ‘Not in his bed,’ she said sharply. ‘She’s not there for her pleasure but for his.’

I didn’t even hear her. All I could hear was the thud of my heart pounding in my ears and my knowledge that he had sent for me, that I would be with him soon.

‘Come on,’ I said to George. ‘Let’s go.’

Anne turned to go back into the room. ‘I’ll wait up for you,’ she said.

I hesitated. ‘I might not come back tonight.’

She nodded. ‘I hope you don’t. But I’ll wait up for you anyway. I’ll sit by the fire and watch the dawn come in.’

I thought for a moment about her keeping a vigil for me in her spinster bedroom while I was snug and loved in the King of England’s bed. ‘My God, you must wish it was you,’ I said with sudden acute delight.

She did not flinch from it. ‘Of course. He is the king.’

‘And he wants me,’ I said, hammering the point home.

George bowed and offered me his arm and led me down the narrow stairs to the lobby before the great hall. We went through it like a pair of interlinked ghosts. No-one saw us pass. There were a couple of the scullions sleeping in the ashes of the fire and half a dozen men dozing head-down on tables around the room.

We went past the top table and through the doors where the king’s private rooms began. There was a set of broad stairs richly hung with a beautiful tapestry, the colours drained from the bright silks by the moonlight. There were two men at arms before the presence chamber and they stood aside to let me pass when they saw me with my golden hair let down and the confident smile on my face.

The presence chamber behind the double doors was a surprise to me. I had only ever seen it crowded with people. This was where everyone came to have sight of the king. Petitioners would bribe senior members of the court to allow them to stand here in case the king noticed them and asked them how they did, and what they wanted of him. I had never seen this big vaulted room other than packed with people in their most handsome clothes, desperate for the king’s attention. Now it was silent, shadowy. George pressed his hand on my cold fingertips.

Ahead of us were the doors to the king’s private chambers. Two men at arms stood with pikes crossed. ‘His Majesty commands our presence,’ George said briefly.

There was a short chime as the pikes clashed, the two men presented arms, bowed, and swung the double doors open.

The king was seated before the fire, wrapped in a warm robe of velvet trimmed with fur. As he heard the door open he leaped to his feet.

I dropped into a deep curtsey. ‘You sent for me, Majesty.’

He could not take his eyes from my face. ‘I did. And I thank you for coming. I wanted to see … I wanted to talk … I wanted to take a little …’ He broke off finally. ‘I wanted you.’

I stepped a little closer. He would smell Anne’s perfume from that distance, I thought. I tossed my head and felt the weight of my hair shift. I saw his eyes go from my face to my hair and back again. Behind me, I heard the door closing as George went out without a word. Henry did not even see him go.

‘I am honoured, Your Majesty,’ I murmured.

He shook his head, not in impatience, but as the gesture of a man who cannot waste time on play. ‘I want you,’ he said again, flatly, as if that were all that a woman would need to know. ‘I want you, Mary Boleyn.’

I took a small step closer to him. I leaned towards him. I felt the warmth of his breath and then the touch of his lips on my hair. I did not move forward or back.

‘Mary,’ he whispered and his voice was choked with his desire.

‘Your Majesty?’

‘Please call me Henry. I want to hear my name on your lips.’

‘Henry.’

‘D’you want me?’ he whispered. ‘I mean as a man? If I were a farmer on your father’s estate, would you want me then?’ He put his hand under my chin to lift up my face so that he could look into my eyes. I met his bright blue gaze. Carefully, delicately I put my hand to his face and felt the softness of his curling beard under my palm. At once he closed his eyes at my touch and then turned his face and kissed my hand where it cupped his chin.

‘Yes,’ I said, caring not at all that it was nonsense. I could not imagine this man as anything but King of England. He could no more deny being king than I could deny being a Howard. ‘If you were a nobody and I were a nobody I would love you,’ I whispered. ‘If you were a farmer with a field of hops I would love you. If I were a girl who came to pick the hops would you love me?’

He drew me closer to him, his hands warm on my stomacher. ‘I would,’ he promised. ‘I would know you anywhere for my true love. Whoever I was and whoever you were, I would know you at once for my true love.’

His head came down and he kissed me gently at first and then harder, the touch of his lips very warm. Then he led me by the hand towards the canopied bed and lay me down on it and buried his face in the swell of my breasts where they showed above the stomacher that Anne had helpfully loosened for him.

At dawn I raised myself on my elbow and looked out of the leaded panes of the window to where the sky was growing pale and I knew that Anne would be watching for the sun too. Anne would be watching the light slowly filling the sky and knowing that her sister was the king’s mistress and the most important woman in England, second only to the queen. I wondered what she made of that as she sat in the windowseat and listened to the first birds tentatively sounding out their notes. I wondered how she felt, knowing that I was the one the king had chosen, the one who was carrying the ambitions of the family. Knowing that it was me and not her in his bed.

In truth, I did not have to wonder. She would be feeling that disturbing mixture of emotions that she always summoned from me: admiration and envy, pride and a furious rivalry, a longing to see a beloved sister succeed, and a passionate desire to see a rival fall.

The king stirred. ‘Are you awake?’ he asked from half-under the covers.

‘Yes,’ I said, instantly alert. I wondered if I should offer to leave, but then he emerged head first from the tangle of bedding and his face was smiling.

‘Good morrow, sweetheart,’ he said to me. ‘Are you well this morning?’

I found I was beaming back at him, reflecting his joy. ‘I’m very well.’

‘Merry in your heart?’

‘Happier than I have ever been in my life before.’

‘Then come to me,’ he said, opening his arms, and I slid down the sheets and into the warm musky-scented embrace, his strong thighs pressing against me, his arms cradling my shoulders, his face burrowing into my neck.

‘Oh Henry,’ I said foolishly. ‘Oh, my love.’

‘Oh I know,’ he said engagingly. ‘Come a little closer.’

I did not leave him till the sun was fully up and then I was in a hurry to be back in my room before the servants were about.

Henry himself helped me into my gown, tied the laces at the back of my stomacher, put his own cloak around my shoulders against the chill of the morning. When he opened the door my brother George was lounging in the windowseat. When he saw the king, he rose to his feet and bowed, cap in hand, and when he saw me behind the king he gave me a sweet smile.

‘See Mistress Carey back to her room,’ the king said. ‘And then send the groom of the bedchamber in, would you, George? I want to be up early this morning.’

George bowed again and offered me his arm.

‘And come with me to hear Mass,’ the king said at the door. ‘You can come with me to my private chapel today, George.’

‘I thank you.’ George accepted with nonchalant grace the greatest honour that any courtier could receive. The door to the privy chamber closed as I curtsied and then we went quickly through the audience chamber and through the great hall.

We were too late to avoid the lowest of the servants, the lads employed to keep the fires burning were dragging great logs into the hall. Other boys were sweeping the floor, and the men at arms who had slept where they had dined were opening their eyes and yawning and cursing the strength of the wine.

I put the hood of the king’s cloak up over my dishevelled hair and we went quickly and quietly through the great hall and up the staircase to the queen’s apartments.

Anne opened the door at George’s knock and drew us in. She was white-faced with lack of sleep, her eyes red. I took in the delicious sight of my sister on the rack of jealousy.

‘Well?’ she asked sharply.

I glanced at the smooth counterpane on the bed. ‘You didn’t sleep.’

‘I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘And I hope you slept but little.’

I turned away from her bawdiness.

‘Come now,’ George said to me. ‘We only want to know that all is well with you, Mary. And Father will have to know and Mother and Uncle Howard. You’d better get used to talking about it. It’s not a private matter.’

‘It’s the most private matter in the world.’

‘Not for you,’ Anne said coldly. ‘So stop looking like a milkmaid in springtime. Did he have you?’

‘Yes,’ I said shortly.

‘More than once?’

‘Yes.’

‘Praise God!’ George said. ‘She’s done it. And I have to go. He asked me to hear Mass with him.’ He crossed the room and caught me up into a hard hug. ‘Well done. We’ll talk later. I have to go now.’

He banged the door indiscreetly as he left and Anne made a little tutting noise and then turned to the chest which held our clothes.

‘You’d better wear your cream gown,’ she said. ‘No need to look the whore. I’ll get you some hot water. You’ll have to bathe.’ She raised her hand to my protests. ‘Yes, you will. So don’t argue. And wash your hair. You have to be spotless, Mary. Don’t be such a lazy slut. And get out of that gown and hurry, we have to go to Mass with the queen in less than an hour.’

I obeyed her, as I always did. ‘But are you happy for me?’ I asked as I struggled out of the stomacher and petticoat.

I saw her face in the mirror, the leap of jealousy veiled by the sweep of her eyelashes. ‘I am happy for the family,’ she said. ‘I hardly ever think about you.’

The king was in his private gallery, overlooking the chapel, hearing matins as we filed past to the queen’s adjoining room. Straining my ears I could just hear the mutter of the clerk putting papers before the king for him to glance at and sign as he watched the priest in the chapel below go through the familiar motions of the Mass. The king always did his business at the same time as hearing the morning service, he followed his father in this tradition, and there were many who thought the work was hallowed. There were others, my uncle among them, who thought that it showed that the king was in a hurry to get the work out of the way and that he only ever gave it half his mind.

I kneeled on the cushion in the queen’s private room, looking at the ivory gleam of my gown as it shimmered, hinting at the contours of my thighs. I could still feel the warmth of him in the tenderness between my legs, I could still taste him on my lips. Despite the bath which Anne had insisted that I took, I still fancied that I could smell the sweat from his chest on my face and in my hair. When I closed my eyes it was not in prayer, but in a reverie of sensuality.

The queen was kneeling beside me, her face grave, her head erect under the heavy gable hood. Her gown was open a little at the neck so that she might slide her finger inside and touch the hair shirt that she always wore next to her skin. Her sober face was drawn and tired, her head bowed over her rosary, the old slack skin on her chin and cheeks looking weary and pouched under her tightly closed eyes.

The Mass went on interminably. I envied Henry the distraction of the state papers. The queen’s attention never wavered, her fingers were never idle on her beads, her eyes were always closed in prayer. Only when the service ended and the priest wiped the chalices in the white cloths and took them away did she give a lingering sigh, as if she had heard something that none of us had ears for. She turned and smiled on all of us, all her ladies, even me.

‘And now let us go to break our fast,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Perhaps the king will eat with us.’

As we filed past his door, I felt myself dawdle, I could not believe that he would let me go by without a word. As if he sensed my desire, my brother George flung open the door at the exact moment that I was lingering and said loudly: ‘A good morning to you, my sister.’

In the room behind him Henry looked up quickly from his work and saw me, framed in the doorway, in the cream gown that Anne had chosen for me, with my cream headdress pulling my rich hair off my young face. He gave a little sigh of desire at the sight of me and I felt my colour rise, and my smile warm my face.

‘Good day, sire. And good day to you, my brother,’ I said softly, while my eyes never left Henry’s face.

Henry rose to his feet and stretched out his hand as if to draw me in. He checked himself with a glance at his clerk.

‘I’ll take my breakfast with you,’ he said. ‘Tell the queen I will come along in a few moments. Just as soon as I have finished these … these …’ His vague gesture indicated that he had no idea what the papers were.

He came across the room, like a dazed trout swimming towards a poacher’s bright lantern. ‘And you, this morning, are you well?’ he said quietly, for my ears only.

‘I am.’ I shot a quick, mischievous glance up at his intent face. ‘A little weary.’

His eyes danced at the admission. ‘Did you not sleep well, sweeting?’

‘Hardly at all.’

‘Was the bed not to your liking?’

I stumbled, I was never as skilled as Anne at this sort of word-play. In the end I said nothing but what was simply true. ‘Sire, I liked it very well.’

‘Would you sleep there again?’

In a delicious moment I found the right response. ‘Oh sire. I was hoping I would not sleep there again very soon.’

He threw back his head and laughed, he snatched up my hand and, turning it over, pressed a kiss into the palm. ‘My lady, you have only to command me,’ he promised. ‘I am your servant in every way.’

I bowed my head to watch his mouth press my hand, I could not take my eyes from his face. He raised his head and we looked at each other, a long mutual look of desire.

‘I should go,’ I said. ‘The queen will wonder where I am.’

‘I shall follow you,’ he said. ‘Believe it.’

I shot him a quick smile then I turned and ran down the gallery after the queen’s ladies. I could hear my heels going tap tap tap on the stones beneath the rushes, I could hear the rustle of my silk gown. I could sense, in every part of my alert body, that I was young and lovely and beloved. Beloved by the King of England himself.

He came to breakfast and smiled as he took his seat. The queen’s pale eyes took in the rosy colour of my face, the rich gleam of my cream gown, and looked away. She called for some musicians to play for us while we ate, and for the queen’s master of the horse to attend us.

‘Will you go hunting today, sire?’ she asked him pleasantly.

‘Yes, indeed. Would any of your ladies care to follow the hunt?’ the king invited.

‘I am sure they would,’ she said with her usual pleasant tone. ‘Mademoiselle Boleyn, Mistress Parker, Mistress Carey? I know you three for keen riders. Would you like to ride with the king today?’

Jane Parker shot a swift malicious gleam at me for being named third. She does not know, I thought, inwardly hugging myself. She can triumph all she likes because she does not know.

‘We would be enchanted to ride with the king,’ Anne said smoothly. ‘All three of us.’

In the great courtyard before the stables the king mounted his big hunter while one of the grooms lifted me up into the saddle of the horse he had given me. I hooked my leg firmly around the pommel and arranged my gown to fall becomingly to the ground. Anne scrutinised me, without missing the tiniest detail, as she always did, and I was pleased when her head, capped with the neatest of French hunting hats with a dainty plume, gave a small approving nod. She called to the groom to lift her up into the saddle and she brought her hunter up beside mine and held him steady while she leaned over.

‘If he wants to take you off into the woods and have you, you’re to say no,’ she whispered. ‘Try to remember that you are a Howard girl. You’re not a complete slut.’

‘If he wants me …’

‘If he wants you, he’ll wait.’

The huntsman blew his horn and every horse in the courtyard stiffened with excitement. Henry grinned across at me like an excited boy and I beamed back. My mare, Jesmond, was like a coiled spring, and when the master of the hunt led the way over the drawbridge we trotted quickly after him, the hounds like a sea of brindle and white around the horses’ hooves. It was a bright day but not too hot, a cool wind moved the grass of the meadow as we trotted away from the town, the haymakers leaned on their scythes and watched us pass, doffing their caps as they saw the bright colours of the aristocratic riders, and then dropping to their knees as they saw the king’s standard.

I glanced back at the castle. A casement window in the queen’s apartments stood open and I saw her dark hood and her pale face looking out after us. She would meet us for dinner and she would smile at Henry and smile at me as if she had not seen us, riding side by side, out for a day’s sport together.

The yelping of the hounds suddenly changed in tone and then they fell silent. The huntsman blew his horn, the long loud blast which meant that the hounds had taken a scent.

‘Hulloa!’ Henry shouted, spurring his horse forward.

‘There!’ I cried. At the end of the avenue of trees opening before us I saw the outline of a large stag, his antlers held flat on his back as he crashed away from the hunt. At once the hounds streamed out behind him, almost silent except for the occasional bark of excitement. They plunged into the undergrowth and we pulled up the horses and waited. The huntsmen trotted anxiously away from the hunt, criss-crossing the forest by the little rides, hoping to spot the deer break away. Then one of them suddenly stood high in his stirrups and blew a loud note on his horn. My horse reared with excitement at the sound and spun round towards him. I clung gracelessly to the pommel and to a handful of mane, caring nothing how I looked as long as I did not tumble off backwards into the mud.

The stag broke away and was racing for his life across the rough empty ground at the edge of the woods that led to the watermeadows and the river. At once the dogs poured after him and the horses after them in a breakneck race. The hooves pounded all around me, I had my eyes squinted, half-shut, as divots of mud flew up into my face, I crouched low over Jesmond’s neck, urging her onwards. I felt my hat tear from my head and tumble away, then there was a hedge before me, white with summer blossom. I felt Jesmond’s powerful hindquarters bunch up beneath me and with one great leap she cleared it, hit the ground on the far side, recovered and was pounding into her fastest gallop again. The king was ahead of me, his attention fixed on the stag which was gaining on us. I could feel the ripple of my hair as it shook out from the pins and I laughed recklessly to feel the wind in my face. Jesmond’s ears went back to hear me laugh and then forward as we came to another hedge with a nasty little ditch before it. She saw it as I did and checked only for a moment and then made a mighty cat-jump: all four feet off the ground at once in order to clear it. I could smell the perfume of crushed honeysuckle as her hooves clipped the top of the hedge, then we were on and on, even faster. Ahead of me the little brown dot that was the stag plunged into the river and started to swim strongly for the other side. The master of the hunt desperately blew for the hounds not to follow the beast into the water but to come back to him and to run down the bank to keep pace with the quarry to bait it as it came to shore. But they were too excited to listen. The whippers-in surged forward but half the pack were after the deer in the river, some of them swept away by the fast current, all of them powerless in the deep water. Henry pulled up his horse and watched the chaos develop.

I was afraid that it would make him angry but he threw back his head and laughed as if he delighted in the stag’s cunning.

‘Go then!’ he shouted after him. ‘I can eat venison here without cooking you! I have a larder of venison!’

Everyone around us laughed as if he had made a wonderful jest and I realised that everyone had been afraid that the failure of the hunt would turn his mood sour. Looking from one bright delighted face to another I thought for one illuminating moment what fools we were to make this one man’s temper the very centre of our lives. But then he smiled towards me and I knew that for me at least, there was no choice.

He took in my mud-splashed face and my tumbling tangled hair. ‘You look like a maid for country matters,’ he said, and anyone could have heard the desire in his voice.

I pulled off my glove and put my hand to my head, ineffectually twisting a knot of hair and tucking it back. I gave him a little sideways smile which acknowledged his bawdiness and yet refused to answer it.

‘Oh shush,’ I ordered softly. Behind his intent face I saw Jane Parker suddenly gulp as if she had swallowed a horse fly and I saw that she had realised at last that she had better mind her manners around us Boleyns.

Henry dropped from his horse, threw the reins to his groom and came to my horse’s head. ‘Will you come down to me?’ he asked, his voice warm and inviting.

I unhooked my knee and let myself slide down the side of my horse and into his arms. He caught me easily and set me on my feet but he did not release me. Before the whole court kissed me on one cheek and then another ‘You are the Queen of the Hunt.’

‘We should crown her with flowers,’ Anne suggested.

‘Yes!’ Henry was pleased with the thought and within moments half the court was plaiting honeysuckle garlands and I had a crown of haunting honey perfume to put on my tumbled golden-brown hair.

The wagons came up with the things for dinner and they put up a little tent for fifty diners, the king’s favourites, and chairs and benches for the rest, and when the queen arrived, ambling on her steady palfrey, she saw me seated at the king’s left hand and crowned with summer flowers.

Next month and England was finally at war with France, a war declared and formal, and Charles, the Emperor of Spain, aimed his army like a lance at the heart of France while the English army in alliance with him marched out of the English fort of Calais, and headed south down the road to Paris.

The court lingered near the City, anxious for news, but then the summertime plague came to London and Henry, always fearful of illness, ruled that the summer progress should start at once. We fled rather than moved to Hampton Court. The king ordered that all the food should be brought from the surrounding country, nothing could come from London. He forbade merchants and traders and artisans to follow the court from the unhealthy stews of the capital. The clean palace on the fresh water must be kept safe from illness.

The news from France was good, and the news from the City was bad. Cardinal Wolsey organised the court to go south and then west, staying at the great houses of the great men, entertained with masques and dinners and hunting and picnics and jousts, and Henry went like a boy, easily diverted by the passing scene. Every courtier living on the route had to play host to the king as if it were his greatest joy instead of his most dreaded expense. The queen travelled with the king, riding by his side through the pretty countryside, sometimes travelling in a litter if she were tired, and though I might be sent for during the night, he was attentive and loving to her during the day. Her nephew was the English army’s only ally in Europe, the friendship of her family meant victory to an English army. But Queen Katherine was more to her husband than an ally in wartime. However much I might please Henry, he was still her boy – her lovely indulged spoilt golden boy. He might summon me or any other girl to his room, without disturbing the constant steady affection between them which had sprung from her ability, long ago, to love this man who was more foolish, more selfish, and less of a prince than she was a princess.