Anne subsided and I went to hold the door open for the two women.
“Thank you,” the second one said, surprised at my politeness to a servant. She nodded to me. “Rank with sweat, poor lady,” she said quietly.
“What?” I asked. I could hardly believe that she was giving me freely a piece of information that a French spy would pay a king’s ransom for, and that every courtier in the land was longing to know. “Are you saying the queen is having night sweats? That her change of life is on her?”
“If not now then very soon,” the maid said. “Poor lady.”
I found my father with George in the great hall, head to head while the servants set the great trestle tables for dinner around them. He beckoned me to him.
“Father,” I said, dropping him a curtsy.
He kissed me coolly on the forehead. “Daughter,” he said. “Did you want to see me?”
For a chilling moment I wondered if he had forgotten my name. “The queen is not with child,” I told him. “She started her course, this day. She missed her other times because of her age.”
“God be praised!” George said exultantly. “I bet myself a gold crown on this. That is good news.”
“The best,” my father said. “The best for us, the worst for England. Has she told the king?”
I shook my head. “She started to bleed this afternoon, she has not seen him yet.”
My father nodded. “So we have the news before him. Anyone else know it?”
I shrugged. “The maids who changed her linen, and so anyone who was paying them. Wolsey, I suppose. Perhaps the French might have bought a maid.”
“Then we have to be fast if we want to be the ones to tell him. Should I?”
George shook his head. “Too intimate,” he said. “What about Mary?”
“It puts her before him at the very moment of his disappointment,” my father mused. “Better not.”
“Anne then,” George said. “It should be one of us to remind him of Mary.”
“Anne can do it,” my father agreed. “She could turn a polecat off the scent of a mouse.”
“She’s in the garden,” I volunteered. “At the archery butts.”
The three of us walked from the great hall into the bright light of the spring sunshine. There was a cold wind blowing through the yellow daffodils that nodded in the sunshine. We could see the little group of courtiers at the archery butts, Anne among them. As we watched she stepped up, sighted the target, drew her bow and we heard the twang of the string and the satisfying thud as the arrow hit the bull’s-eye. There was a scattering of applause. Henry Percy strode up to the target and plucked Anne’s arrow from it and tucked it into his own quiver, as if he would keep it.
Anne was laughing, holding out her hand for her arrow, as she glanced over and saw us. At once, she turned from the company and came toward us.
“Father.”
“Anne.” He kissed her more warmly than he had kissed me.
“The queen has started her courses,” George said bluntly. “We think that you should tell the king.”
“Rather than Mary?”
“It makes her look low,” my father said. “Tattling with chambermaids, watching them empty piss pots.”
For a moment I thought that Anne would remark that she did not want to look low either, but she shrugged her shoulders. She knew that serving the Howard family ambition always had a price attached.
“And make sure that Mary is back in his eye,” my father said. “When he turns against the queen it must be Mary who picks him up.”
Anne nodded. “Of course.” Only I could have heard the edge in her voice. “Mary comes first.”
The king came to the queen’s rooms that evening as usual to sit beside her at the fireside. We three of us watched him, certain that he must tire of this domestic peace. But the queen was skilful in entertaining him. There was always a game of cards or dice going on, she had always read the most recent books and could venture and defend an interesting opinion. There were always other visitors, learned or well-traveled men who would talk with the king, there was always the best music, and Henry loved good music. Thomas More was a favorite of hers and sometimes the three of them would walk on the flat roofs of the castle and look at the night skies. More and the king would speak of interpretations of the Bible and whether there would ever come a time when it would be right to allow an English Bible that common people could read. And there were always pretty women. The queen was wise enough to fill her rooms with the prettiest women in the kingdom.
This evening was no exception, she entertained him as if he were a visiting ambassador that she had to favor. After he had talked with her for a while someone asked if he would sing and he took the floor and sung us one of his own compositions. He asked for a lady to take the soprano part and Anne reluctantly and modestly came forward and said that she would try. Of course she had it note perfect. They sang an encore, well pleased with themselves, and then Henry kissed Anne’s hand and the queen called for wine for our two songsters.
It was nothing more than a touch to his hand and Anne had him a little aside from the rest of the court. Only the queen and us Boleyns knew that the king had been drawn away. The queen called for one of the musicians to play us another air, she had too much sense ever to be caught glaring after her husband as he started another flirtation. She shot one quick look at me to see how I was taking the sight of my sister on the king’s arm and I gave her a bland, innocent smile.
“You are becoming a fine courtier, my little wife,” William Carey remarked.
“I am?”
“When you first came to court you were a fresh piece of goods, hardly glazed by the French court, but now the gilt seems to be entering your soul. Do you ever do a thing without thinking twice?”
For a moment I would have defended myself but I saw Anne speak a sentence to the king and saw him glance back at the queen. Anne put her hand gently on his sleeve and said another soft word. I turned away from William, quite deaf to him, and instead watched the man I loved. I saw his broad shoulders bend and drop down, as if half his power had gone from him. He looked at the queen as if she had betrayed him, his face vulnerable as a child. Anne turned so he was shielded from the rest of the court and George went forward to ask the queen if we might dance, to keep the attention away from Anne, pouring sorrow into the king’s ear.
I could not bear it, I slipped away from the girls who were clamoring to dance and went to Henry, pushing past Anne to get to him. His face was pale, his eyes tragic. I took his hands and said only: “Oh my dear.”
He turned to me at once. “Did you know too? Do all her ladies know?”
“I think so,” Anne said. “We cannot blame her for not wanting to tell you, poor lady, it was her last hope. It was your last chance, sire.”
I felt his fingers grip my hand a little tighter. “The soothsayer told me…”
“I know,” I said gently. “She was probably bribed.”
Anne melted away, and the two of us were alone.
“And I lay with her and tried so hard, and hoped…”
“I prayed for you,” I whispered. “For you both. I was so hoping that you would have a son, Henry. Before God, I would rather that she gave you a legitimate son than any other wish in the world.”
“But she cannot now.” His mouth shut like a trap. He looked like a spoilt child, who cannot get what he wants.
“No, not any more,” I confirmed. “It is over.”
Abruptly he dropped my hands and turned away from me. The dancers parted before his rapid advance as he strode through the sets. He went to the queen, who was seated smiling on her court and said, loud enough for everyone to hear: “I’m told you are unwell, madam. I could wish you had told me yourself.”
At once she looked to me, her sharp gaze accusing me of betraying her most intimate secret. Minutely I shook my head. She looked for Anne in the dancers and saw her, with George’s hand in hers. Blandly, Anne looked back.
r /> “I am sorry, Your Majesty,” the queen said with her immense dignity. “I should have chosen a more fitting time to discuss this with you.”
“You should have chosen a more immediate time,” he corrected her. “But since you are unwell I suggest that you dismiss your court and bide by yourself.”
Those of the queen’s court who grasped at once what was happening whispered quickly to their neighbors. But most of them stood and stared at the king’s sudden storm of bad humor, and at the queen’s white-faced endurance.
Henry turned on his heel, snapped his fingers for his friends: George, Henry, William, Charles, Francis, as if he were calling his dogs, and marched out of the queen’s rooms without another word. I was pleased to see that of all of them, my brother George swept her the deepest bow. She let them go without a word, and rose and went quietly into her own privy chamber.
The musicians, who had been fiddling away sounding more and more ragged, found their tune had died and they looked around for orders.
“Oh go,” I said in sudden impatience. “Can’t you see there’ll be no more dancing and no more singing for tonight? Nobody here needs music. God knows, nobody wants to dance.”
Jane Parker looked at me in surprise. “I’d have thought you’d have been glad. The king on bad terms with the queen, and you ready to be picked up like a bruised peach in the gutter.”
“And I’d have thought you’d have had more sense than to say such a thing,” Anne said roundly. “To speak thus of your sister-in-law to be! You had better take care or you won’t be welcome in this family.”
Jane did not back down to Anne. “There’s no breaking a betrothal. George and I are as good as wed in church. It’s just a question of settling the day. You can welcome me or you can hate me, Miss Anne. But you can’t forbid me. We are promised before witnesses.”
“Oh what does it matter!” I cried out. “What does any of it matter?” I turned and ran to my chamber. Anne slipped in after me.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded tersely. “Is the king angry with us?”
“No, though he should be, for we did a nasty piece of work in telling him the queen’s secret.”
“Oh aye,” Anne nodded, quite unmoved. “But he was not angry with us?”
“No, he’s hurt.”
Anne went to the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I’m going to get them to bring the bath here,” she said. “You’re going to wash.”
“Oh Anne,” I said irritably. “He’s heard the worst news in his life. He’s in the worst of tempers. He’s hardly going to send for me tonight. I can wash tomorrow, if I have to.”
She shook her head. “I’m taking no chances,” she said. “You wash tonight.”
She was wrong, but only by a day. The next day the queen sat alone in her room with her ladies and I dined in the privy chamber with my brother, with his friends, and with the king. It was a merry merry evening with music and dancing and gambling. And that night I was in the king’s bed once more.
This time Henry and I were all but inseparable. The court knew that we were lovers, the queen knew, even the common people who came out from London to watch us dine knew. I wore his gold bracelet around my wrist, I rode his hunter to hounds. I had a pair of matched diamonds for my ears, I had three new gowns, one of cloth of gold. And one morning in bed he said to me:
“Did you never wonder what came of that sketch that I asked the artist at the shipyard to do?”
“I’d forgotten him,” I said.
“Come here and kiss me and I will tell you why I ordered him to draw you,” Henry said lazily.
He lay back on the pillows of his bed. It was late in the morning but the curtains were still drawn around us, shielding us from the servants coming in to make up the fire, to bring him hot water, to empty the piss pot. I swarmed up the bed toward him, leaning my round breasts against his warm chest, letting my hair tumble forward in a veil of gold and bronze. My mouth came down on his, I inhaled the warm erotic scent of his beard, felt the soft prickle of the hairs around his mouth, pushed deeper against his lips and felt, as much as heard, his little groan of desire as I kissed him hard.
I raised my head and smiled into his eyes. “There is your kiss,” I whispered throatily, feeling my desire rise with his. “Why did you order the artist to draw me?”
“I shall show you,” he promised. “After Mass. We’ll ride down to the river and you shall see my new ship and your likeness at the same time.”
“Is the ship ready?” I asked. I was reluctant to move away from him but he pulled back the covers and was ready to rise.
“Yes. We’ll see her launched next week sometime,” he said. He drew back the bed curtains a little and shouted for a servant to fetch George. I threw on my gown and my cloak and Henry held my hand to help me down from the bed. He kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll break my fast with the queen,” he decided. “And then we’ll go out and see the ship.”
It was a lovely morning. I was wearing a new riding habit of yellow velvet, made for me with a bolt of cloth the king had given me. Anne was at my side in one of my old gowns. It gave me a fierce joy to see her wearing my hand-me-downs. But then, in the contradictory way of sisters, I admired what she had done with it. She had ordered it to be shortened and re-cut in the French way and she looked stylish. She wore it with a little French hat made from the material she had saved by cutting the skirt straighter. Henry Percy of Northumberland could not keep his eyes off her, but she flirted with equal charm with all of the king’s companions. There were nine of us riding out. Henry and I side by side in the lead. Anne behind me with Percy and William Norris. George and Jane, a silent ill-matched couple, next, and Francis Weston and William Brereton came behind, laughing and cracking jokes. We were preceded only by a couple of grooms and followed by four mounted soldiers.
We rode by the river. The tide was coming in and the waves splashed on the shore, white-capped. The seagulls, blown inland, cried and wheeled above our heads, their wings as bright as silver in the spring sunshine. The hedgerows were greening with the fresh color of spring growth, primroses like pale pats of creamy butter in the sunny spots on the banks. The track alongside the river was hard-packed mud and the horses cantered along at a good easy pace. As we rode, the king sang me a love song of his own composing, and when I heard it over the second time I sang it with him and he laughed at my attempt at harmony. I did not have Anne’s talent, I knew. But it did not matter. That day nothing mattered, nothing could matter, but that my beloved and I were riding out together in the brightest of sunshine, on a little journey for pleasure, and he was happy, and I was happy in his sight.
We reached the shipyard sooner than I wanted and Henry himself stood beside my horse, lifted me down from the saddle and held me for a swift kiss when my feet were on the ground.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered. “I have a little surprise for you.”
He turned me around and stepped to one side so that I could see his beautiful new ship. She was almost ready for the sea now, she had the characteristic high poop deck and prow of a fighting ship, built for speed.
“Look,” Henry said, seeing me taking in her lines but not the detail. He pointed to her name carved and enameled in gold in bold curly letters at the ornate prow. It said: “Mary Boleyn.”
For a moment I stared, reading the letters of my name but not understanding. He did not laugh at my astounded face, he watched me, seeing my surprise turn to puzzlement and then to dawning understanding.
“You named her for me?” I asked. I could hear my voice quaver. It was an honor too great for me. I felt too young, too small a person altogether to have a ship, and such a ship, named for me. And now everyone in the world would know that I was the king’s mistress. There could be no denial.
“I did, sweetheart.” He was smiling. He expected me to be delighted.
He tucked my cold hand under his elbow and urged me to the front of the ship. There was a fi
gurehead, looking out with a proud beautiful profile, looking out over the Thames, out to sea, to France. It was me, with my lips slightly parted, slightly smiling, as if I was a woman to want such an adventure. As if I were not the cat’s-paw of the Howard family but a courageous lovely woman in my own right.
“Me?” I asked, my voice a thread above the sound of the water splashing at the side of the dry dock.
Henry’s mouth was at my ear, I could feel the warmth of his breath on my cold cheek.
“You,” he said. “A beauty, like you. Are you happy, Mary?”
I turned to him and his arms came around me and I stood up on tiptoe and buried my face in the warmth of his neck and smelled the sweet scent of his beard and his hair. “Oh Henry,” I whispered. I wanted my face hidden from him, I knew that he would see no pleasure but a terror at rising so high, so publicly.
“Are you happy?” he insisted. He turned my face up, with a hand under my chin, so that he could scan me as if I were a manuscript. “It is a great honor.”
“I know.” My smile trembled on my lips. “I thank you.”
“And you shall launch her,” he promised me. “Next week.”
I hesitated. “Not the queen?”
I was fearful of taking her place to launch the newest and greatest ship that he had ever built. But of course it had to be me. How could she launch a ship that bore my name?
He shrugged her away as if they had not been husband and wife for thirteen years. “No,” he said shortly. “Not the queen. You.”
I found a smile from somewhere and hoped that it was convincing and that it hid my terrified sense that I was going too far, too fast, and that the end of this road was not the sort of carefree joy that we had felt this morning, but something darker and more fearful. For all that we had ridden, singing out of tune together, we were not a lover and his lass. If my name was on this ship, if I launched it next week, then I was a declared rival to the Queen of England. I was an enemy to the Spanish ambassador, to the whole nation of Spain. I was a powerful force in the court, a threat to the Seymour family. The higher I rose in the king’s favor the greater the dangers that opened up around me. But I was a young woman of only fifteen years old. I could not yet revel in ambition.