Mary drew herself up, slender and golden. A most valuable piece on the chessboard. “I shall marry King Louis,” she said, each word enunciated as though she were carefully choosing it from a tray of others. “I will take a large number of ladies with me, to form my court. And when Louis dies, I will retain the jewels he has given me.” She paused. “From you, I require one thing.”
“Name it.” Naturally I would grant her anything, any wedding present she might wish. I would even name my new flagship after her, rather than myself.
“When Louis dies, I shall be free to marry whom I will. You may marry me this once. Hereafter I will marry myself.”
No. She was too valuable to me, and to England. “No.”
“Then I shall not wed Louis. I shall enter a convent instead.”
“You would do that, rather than submit entirely?” She was a Tudor—stubborn and ruthless. “I would never let you do that to yourself. Very well, then, I grant you your wish.” By the time she was widowed, she’d be more sensible. We all became more sensible in time. Then I had a sudden suspicion. “There isn’t someone now that you fancy?”
She smiled a faraway smile. “There are many that I fancy,” she said. “As any young girl might.”
After we had parted, I could not help reflecting on what she had said. It was true, the company I sought had changed. Instead of Erasmus and Dean John Colet, I wanted Edward Guildford and Edward Poyntz, bluff courtiers. Instead of Katherine, I had Wolsey for my political confidant. I did not want to be alone to pray, or reflect, or compose music. I wanted noise and gaiety and distractions; I wanted power rather than chivalry.
Yet not all of me did. The first Henry, the one who wanted to be a “true knight”—he existed alongside the second one, keeping uneasy watch over him.
XXII
Mary and King Louis were to be married by proxy in England, so that she would arrive in France already its Queen. The elegant Louis d’Orleans, Duc de Longueville, taken prisoner in France during the war campaign, was to stand in for Louis and recite his vows for him. Although technically a hostage, de Longueville in fact behaved as a French diplomat, and it was to him that King Louis sent his wedding gift for Mary: a pendant necklace made of a gigantic, pear-shaped pearl so singular that it had a name of its own—the Mirror of Naples. I made a promise to myself to have it appraised by honest English jewellers before Mary left for France.
The ceremony was to take place at Greenwich, with Archbishop Warham presiding, in the presence of the peers of the realm. I had transformed the gathering-room of the royal apartments with cloth-of-gold and silk, so that it glittered like a cave of gold, a treasure-hoard of legend.
Below, at the palace landing, even the piers were swathed in gold tissue, and I could see the lavishly appointed barges of the wedding guests tied up, bobbing gaily on the water.
“Come, Katherine,” I said, turning to my wife. “It is time.” I offered my arm. Katherine took it, wordlessly and stiffly; that was the way things were between us now.
In my outer chamber, Wolsey was waiting, resplendent in gleaming brocade vestments. As part of the ceremony he was to be recognized by Louis as furthering the cause of France. Katherine nodded stiffly to him. That was how things stood between them, as well.
Mary made a lovely bride. One would never suspect, hearing her lilting voice pronouncing the hastily learned French vows to de Longueville, pledging her love and fidelity, that she had ever desired anything else. The rings were exchanged, the bridal kiss conferred, the papers signed. And now the marriage must be “consummated” by proxy.
This had been my inspiration. A proxy marriage might be repudiated, like a precontract or betrothal. But a proxy consummation—that was another matter.
“An absurd idea,” Katherine had sniffed. “Verbal agreements, properly witnessed, or signed documents, are all that honourable men require.”
“Like my father and your father? We made verbal agreements and went through a public betrothal. Was it honoured? Why did you have to sell your dower-plate for food, then? You still continue to believe in honour, my duck?”
“I believe in your honour,” she said.
Wolsey, on the other hand, had appreciated the genius of it.
“The very uniqueness, the novelty of it, will seal it in the eyes of the world,” he said. “It will be, in its own way, even more of a consummation than the ordinary kind.”
“Quite.”
I had had a great state bed set up in the middle of the Assembly Chamber. It was canopied, but no bed-curtains were hung to obscure the view, and no coverlets of fur or wool were arranged there to veil the required actions.
The entire company gathered about the bed, while Mary retired to change into a nightdress. Katherine and her attendants waited until Mary emerged, clad in her magnificent dishabille, then escorted her with stately steps up to the bed, laying her out on her back upon the satin bedcloth, smoothing her hair.
Then the Duc de Longueville approached the foot of the bed, wearing red hose and boots, which he ceremoniously removed, placing them neatly side by side. Assisted by Wolsey and Brandon, he mounted the side of the bed, lay down beside Mary, and touched her bare foot with his naked leg. He remained in that position whilst the onlookers gazed intently and Archbishop Warham peered over them and solemnly pronounced, “The marriage has been consummated!” The witnesses then broke into cheers and showered Mary and de Longueville with flowers.
De Longueville sat up and began making jokes. “ ’Twas over in less time than a fifteen-year-old, and here I am of an age with His Highness! Were this all one felt, a man would scarcely hurry home from the fields for it!”
Mary, blushing (as befitted a modest bride), rose from the nuptial bed to change into yet a third costume, her ballgown, for the banquet and ball were to follow. The guests flocked to the Banquet Hall while Wolsey, Katherine, de Longueville, and I lingered, waiting for Mary.
“Well done,” I said. “You assisted in the making of a Queen. This will be the Banquet of Two Queens—that of England and France,” I said, hoping to cajole Katherine. I had pointedly excluded the Spanish ambassador from all these ceremonies, to her anger.
“If only your other sister were here, there would be three Queens,” she answered, irrelevantly. She was determined to be aloof; so be it. I turned to de Longueville.
“You are a free man now. King Louis has paid your ransom.” A fat one it was, too, and I had put it right into my private account. “Although I must say you passed your ‘captivity’ in French style.”
He smiled, and answered my implied question. “Yes. Mistress Popincourt is going with me. I shall install her in my apartments in the Louvre.” De Longueville had, naturally, acquired a mistress during his brief stay with us. I resolved that it was high time I acquired one, too.
Mary joined us, dazzling in a gown of royal blue silk.
Wolsey bowed low. “You shine like the angels painted by the Italian masters,” he murmured. “All blue and gold you are.”
“My Queen.” De Longueville made obeisance.
Mary looked startled. The transformation from Tudor Princess to French Queen had been so swift, and so absolute.
Katherine moved over to kiss her cheek. “Now we are sister Queens,” she said.
Together the five of us entered the Banquet Hall, where all the company awaited us: glowing spots of colour against the creamy stone of the Hall; the candlelight reflecting and magnifying from the gold plate that was displayed everywhere.
Mary was feted again and again, and I led out the first dance with her, Brother King and Sister Queen. I knew we were a stunning sight, our youth and strength and colour making us seem more than mortal. Indeed, I felt myself, that night, to be something beyond an ordinary being, certainly beyond my ordinary self, with all his confines and sensitivities.
Katherine danced only the sedate basse-dances and the pavane, that introductory measure in which all the company paraded their wardrobes. She was now in her eighth mont
h, and all was well. I made sure her thronelike chair was fitted with extra velvet pillows, and that she had a footstool for her swollen feet.
That left me free to dance with whomsoever I pleased, and there were many pleasing women. Katherine’s attendants, particularly her maids of honour, were young and unmarried. Yes, it was time I found a mistress. I had been too laggard in availing myself of a sovereign’s prerogative. Sovereign’s? I looked over at Brandon, smiling at his partner, looking like Bacchus. It was a man’s prerogative. One did not need to justify it on the grounds of rank.
There was winsome little Kate, from Kent, a niece of Edward Baynton’s. She was light as gauze, bright as a butterfly, and as insubstantial. There was Margery, a raven-haired Howard girl, some relation to the Duke of Norfolk, with a big bosom and pudgy fingers. There was Jocelyn, a distant cousin of mine, through my Bourchier relations in Essex. But she was a thin, intense sort, and it was not good to meddle with one’s relatives, besides.
There was a Persephone, standing near Lord Mountjoy.
My heart felt a hush as I beheld her. I swear my first thought was of Persephone, of all the ways I had imagined her when I first heard the legend—a sweet nymph with red-gold hair and pink cheeks and a white, simple gown. Gathering flowers, playing on the riverbank so happily . . . all the while unknowingly inciting lust in the lurking god of the Underworld.
We danced. She danced like an accomplished child, all gaiety and abandon. Abandon . . . yes, I longed for that, for abandon in a bedmate. I knew she would be that way, giving and taking with offhanded energy. I lusted for her so acutely that every muscle in my body quivered. Now, now, it must be now, I could not wait even an hour . . . yet I must wait, must endure the dances yet to come, and the other partners, and the speeches, and the leave-taking, and the slow extinguishing of all this company of candles. . . .
“Mistress, you dance well,” I murmured. “Perhaps you would care to dance again with me, in private?” How absurd! I knew not the prescribed approach, what phrases to use. Brandon knew all that; he was a practised voluptuary. I was as ignorant as a child.
She looked at me quizzically. “Whenever you may summon me.”
“That may be tonight.” Was that clear enough? Was that what Brandon would have said?
“I must leave with my uncle,” she said hesitantly. Then, suddenly, I knew: she was as unpractised at the art and rules of this thing as I. Did she not realize that I commanded her uncle?
“Who is your uncle?”
“Lord Mountjoy, William Blount.”
Katherine’s chamberlain! And a friend of Erasmus’s and the rest of the humanist scholars! I could not have chosen more unsuitably. But she was so lovely. How could I do other than pursue her?
“Oh, Mountjoy.” I flicked my hand in a grand dismissal. “And what is your name?” But even before she said it, I had said it to myself.
“Bessie Blount, Your Grace.”
“You have learned to dance,” I said softly. “And to like the court, too. I am glad you did not hide your beauty away in Lincolnshire after all.”
“I, too, Your Grace. Although until now . . . I was not sure I was right to stay.”
Just so simply was it settled. And we both were aware of what had been asked and what had been granted, and the enormous promise that hovered over us.
Oh, would this ball never end?
I was not prepared even as to where to go. A seasoned libertine would have had rooms always at the ready, prepared for impromptu dalliance. I had no such thing. The royal apartments were anything but private. To gain entrance to my bedchamber would require the alerting of at least twenty attendants en route. This had never presented a problem with my lawful wife. Now, suddenly, it was a source of acute embarrassment.
We found ourselves a place in a small chamber behind the musicians’ gallery, where the instruments were stored and where consorts often rehearsed. There was a daybed there, and stools, and candles and torches. I lighted a candle and, from that, a torch. We were surrounded by viols, trumpets, drums, and tambourines, all reflecting back the dancing light from their rounded and polished surfaces.
“Bessie,” I said, “I am—” I wanted to be kind, warm, reassuring. But lust overwhelmed me, and once I touched her I could not control myself. I covered her face with kisses, plunged my hands into her thick hair, tore out its bindings so that it fell free over her shoulders and even covered her face, all but her parted lips, which I devoured. In a fever-fit of excitement, I undressed her, perplexed by the fastenings of her clothes (for I had never undressed Katherine; her maids of honour did that), trying not to harm them. She had to show me, else I would have ripped them.
When we lay side by side on the musicians’ daybed, she turned toward the torch so that the amber-coloured light bathed her body and sweet face. “Bessie—Bessie—” I wanted to master my need, at least draw it out a little, but it mastered me, and I pulled her under me in the ancient act of submission, crushed her beneath me, plunged into her body—O God, she was a virgin!—and in a frenzy, sweat exploding from my whole body, I drove myself into her again and again (hearing dimly her cries in my ear) until I burst open inside her.
I spiralled down into a great darkness, turning, turning, landing softly.
She was crying, fighting for breath, clawing at my shoulders.
“Jesu, Bessie . . .” I released her, pulled her up, embraced her. She gasped for air, crying all the while. “I am sorry, forgive me, forgive me—” The mad beast had gone, leaving a conscience-stricken man to repair the damage. I comforted her, hating myself. Eventually she stopped crying and became calm. I began my apologies again. She put up a shaking finger against my lips.
“It is done,” she said slowly. “And I am glad of it.”
Now I truly comprehended how ignorant I was of women. “I behaved as a beast, and injured your . . . your honour.” I had not even thought of the virginity beforehand.
“If it was this difficult with someone whose body I craved, think how much more difficult it would have been with someone to whom I was indifferent.”
“But you would not have found yourself . . . thus . . . with someone you . . . didn’t want.”
She shook her head. “What do you think marriage is, for a woman?”
Mary. Mary and Louis. God, how could the Mirror of Naples compensate for that?
“But now . . . when you come to your marriage-bed . . . I’ve robbed you.”
“I’ll pretend.”
“But you can’t pretend—if it is not so!”
“I have heard . . . that it is easy to pretend, and men are content with that.”
I was covered with sweat, the daybed was made rank with her deflowering, I was thoroughly shamed—and yet (O, most shameful of all!) with her words, and the thought of her later in another man’s bed, my lust began to flame once more.
Just then she reached over and touched my cheek. “We must go. But oh—let us spend another few moments. . . .” She did not wish to flee? She did not despise me? Truly, I knew nothing of women—or of my own nature, either.
It was dawn when we finally left the musicians’ chamber, creeping down the stone stairs and stealing across the silent Banquet Hall, where the flowers still lay scattered on the floor.
XXIII
From that night on I was a changed man: I was a lover, hurrying by light and by dark to Bessie’s naked body, seeing how many ways there were of coupling. I had only to imagine something and within hours we would be trying it. The more I created in my mind, the more my ideas doubled and tripled; so lust gives rise to a nation of lust.
I lost no time in setting up a suite of rooms for my purpose. They were to be quite separate from the royal apartments, away from all my watchful attendants. (Bessie’s father, Sir John Blount, served as an Esquire of the Body, one who undressed and dressed me. A sense of decency meant that I could not allow him to see the kiss-marks, catch the woman-odour of his own daughter upon the body of the man he served.) My amour-rooms w
ere located near Wolsey’s suite and consisted of a small dining chamber, a dressing room, and a bedchamber. My locksmith fitted the outer door with a lock to which there were only two keys, one for myself and one for Bessie.
Bessie’s hours were such that she must attend Katherine from the midday meal, served with its formal three courses in Katherine’s private dining chamber, until Vesper-time at five o’clock, keeping her company, amusing her with music and reading. These days there was much needlework to be done, embroidering new clothes for the baby, whose birth was imminent. Katherine had declined to use any of the clothing from Prince Henry; she had packed it away in sorrow.
Daily I attended Vespers with Katherine, sitting and kneeling beside her, looking with pride at the child she carried. I was able to pray for her, to squeeze her hand lovingly, to feel affection for her . . . and at the same time to imagine Bessie preparing for our assignation, warming the wine, twisting her hair up into that intricate knot I so loved to untie, rubbing perfume into the bends of her elbows and knees . . . oh, I was damned, I was evil, and yet I craved it. Never did it feel better to me than when I crossed directly from Katherine’s chapel to Bessie’s rooms, words of prayer from my mouth changing to words of carnality.
There was no transition, no polite greeting. Only indecent haste, as we rushed to gratify ourselves upon ourselves, Bessie as much as I. Together we had changed, in the course of only two or three meetings, from awkward, self-conscious youths to shameless voluptuaries.
Should I recount our pleasures here? Should I torture myself by remembering feats I can never hope to match again? We hid sweetmeats in our privates, to be extracted (so our rule was) only by the tongue, never by the fingers. . . . We watched our reflections, watched a hundred Henrys and Bessies copulating, in the window that reflected the mirror that reflected the window that reflected the mirror. . . . We wore masks, and I was a savage and she Diana. . . . I entered her and we turned the sandglass over and counted how many times we could come to the culmination, both together and separately. . . . And there was the time when I decked her naked body with all Katherine’s jewels, and that, strangely, felt the most adulterous of all. . . .