Tarnish (18 page)

“In slumbers oft for fear I quake.

For heat and cold I burn and shake.

For lack of sleep my head doth ache.

What means this?”

He leaves the table and walks to the middle of the meadow, the sun on his hair like a torch. His voice is clear and carrying in the morning air. He shines. Even the king, in shadows behind him, is diminished.

“And if perchance by me there pass

She unto whom I sue for grace,

The cold blood forsaketh my face.

What means this?”

“It means you’re smitten, friend!” Norris calls.

Wyatt turns to me, the sun on his face washing the shadows from it. His gaze perforates my heart, and I have to remind myself it’s all a show. A game. A bet. And I don’t want it to be more than that. It can’t be more than that. He paces toward me, his voice so low the entire assembly has to lean forward to hear him.

“But if I sit near her by”—

Wyatt falls dramatically to the empty bench beside me.

“With loud voice my heart doth cry,

And yet my mouth is numb and dry:

What means this?”

He falls back against the table, right hand above his heart, the left over his brow with the palm facing outward, the very picture of unrequited love.

The table erupts into cheers and pounding. The women sigh. Jane looks at me with tears in her eyes and mouths,
“Adorable.”

I wait for the applause to die down, delicately clear my throat.

“It means you need a glass of wine,” I say in the driest voice I can muster, and give him my goblet.

My hand doesn’t shake at all.

Norris cheers while the others laugh. George turns away. Wyatt raises the goblet to me in a mute toast, apology in his eyes. And something else. Something that sends my heart into a rhythm not my own.

“To friends,” he says, so only I can hear.

And something inside me plummets.

25

M
Y DREAMS ARE HAUNTED BY GREEN AND GOLD.
B
UT MY DAYS
are haunted by other men.

The palace is full to bursting because Christian II, king of Denmark, is coming to visit. Deposed, he is wandering Europe like a minstrel, singing his song of woe, despite having repressed his subjects to the point of riot.

Jousts and banquets and dances are planned. Everyone forgets Thomas Wyatt’s silvered poetry in the forest. Except me.

He disappears in the tumult, leaving me to navigate the new court demands on my own. Leaving me to Henry Percy.

Wolsey arrives at Greenwich, perched atop a donkey caparisoned with cloth of gold. The gaudiness of the trappings subverts the impression of the unpretentious cleric the donkey is meant to convey, but Wolsey doesn’t acknowledge the irony.

His men come to the queen’s rooms. Percy, straight and studied. Butler, unruly and explosive. And the king’s men, too, savoring the cover of chaos for illicit flirtation. Norris, especially.

He sits beside me. A little too close. But not close enough for comment.

Butler, obvious in his awkwardness, brays at the card table.

“Mistress Boleyn,” Norris says, “I hear you are to marry our friend Butler over there. The match made in York Place.”

“Certainly not in heaven.”

Norris laughs and allows himself to edge a little closer to me.

“And what about Thomas Wyatt?”

“What about him?”

“Rumor has it that you’re his latest conquest.”

I look at him archly.

“The term
conquest
suggests submission, Sir Henry.”

Norris smiles craftily. “I wonder on which side,” he purrs.

“And pray tell what justifies your interest in such a thing?”

“My dear, if anything bad should happen to him, I would look to have you.”

He holds my gaze for a long moment, daring me to respond. But I retaliate.

“I would undo you if you tried.”

Norris laughs.

“I’m sure you would, Mistress Boleyn.”

He stands and walks away, his movements calculated. Exaggerated. He looks once over his shoulder, and grins.

Percy watches him go and moves to take his place. I sneak a sideways glance at him. Percy’s clothes are almost camouflaged against the background of the courtiers who swarm the ladies of the queen’s chambers like flies on butter. He wears little to distinguish himself—the opposite of Wolsey. Percy doesn’t want to be seen or heard but merely exist, unremarked.

Wyatt’s words come back to me:
You were meant for something better
. I shake them away. There is nothing better. There is only worse. Sold to James Butler in Ireland. Lodged beneath my father’s shadow. Wasting away as the flirtatious—but unmarriageable—sister of the king’s whore. Or the perceived mistress of the court’s most notorious philanderer. No, my only escape is this man beside me. Bland, perhaps. But grand, as well.

I glance up to see the duchess studying me. Her gray eyes flick to Percy and back to me. I raise an eyebrow. She glares, and I imagine her face when I join the circle of nobility. So I compose my features and nod my head in deference. Let her think I submit to her superiority. For now.

“Are you friends with the duchess?” Percy asks.

His baritone rumbles through me and settles somewhere south of my heart. I’m used to him being silent.

“Actually, I think she wishes me dead.”

“I’m sure you’re witty, Mistress Boleyn. But sometimes you speak and act unwisely.”

“One of my greatest faults.”

“Most faults can be overcome.”

“Do you have any faults, Lord Percy?” I tease.

“I am not as brave nor as adamant as my father.” He has taken my question seriously.

“I’m sure even our fathers can be overcome.” I lay a hand on his.

He twitches it away and I pull mine back into my lap.

“I sincerely hope so,” he says. He turns to me, and for an instant I see something spirited in his gaze. But it disappears quickly.

“I need to tread carefully with my father. Someone so”—he looks to the door through which Norris exited—“flamboyant as yourself might make him draw the wrong conclusions.”

I wonder what conclusions Percy himself has drawn.

“Are you saying you don’t want to be seen with a girl like me?”

“I’m saying I need to ensure my name is not connected to scandal.”

The Château Vert.
Mary’s affair with the king. George’s increasingly visible drunkenness. My own flirtatiousness.

“
Your
name.”

He nods, not hearing or comprehending the coldness of my voice. “The Percys have been nobility for centuries. We are related to the king.”

And have managed to regain lands and titles despite sitting immobile on the wrong side of the battle of Bosworth. The Percys certainly know when to act. And when not to.

“In these days when the king appoints new men to ancient titles,” Percy continues, “the old names must persevere. Unblemished.”

“And yet here you sit. Next to the daughter of a new man.”

Percy suddenly seems to realize my existence.

“Don’t get me wrong, Mistress Boleyn,” he says, and I see the fervency in his eyes once more. “You are related to Norfolk. To the ancient lines. You are . . .”

He stutters to a halt. Looks at my lips, then down at his hands, clasped in his lap. He exudes the scent of old paper.

“. . . extraordinary.”

A bubble rises within me, warm and fine and fragile. I spread my fingers on my skirts.

“I don’t want my father’s choice,” Percy says with a cough. As if he feels he’s said too much. “I want mine.” He looks again into my eyes. “Which is why we must be careful.”

The bubble expands at the sound of the word
we
. He looks away. I turn, too, and study the smoke climbing the walls up to the ceiling.

“There can be no indication of a relationship here until it is . . .” Another cough. “Consummated.”

I catch his eye just before he looks away again. It is as if we are in the steps of a complicated dance.

“No one can know. Not your brother. Not your sister. Certainly not Thomas Wyatt.”

Wyatt already knows. A little. He doesn’t approve. He would never set himself up to be a spurned lover. He won’t speak of it.

“Not your father.”

I finally find my voice. “But when my father returns, he will push my marriage to Butler.”

Percy sits so still and so silent, I’m not sure he heard me. The little noises of the room fill the vacant space: the whispers of the duchess and her confederacy in the corner, the soft slip of silk beneath the queen’s fingers, the rattle of dice on the table by the door.

Percy turns and looks at me directly. “Then we must find a way to engender a more desirable result.”

26

T
HE UPROAR OVER THE
D
ANISH VISIT REACHES AN INTOLERABLE
pitch. The prospect of a tournament makes the men insatiable in the practice of their war games, as evidenced by the constant clangor of metal and shatter of wood from the practice grounds. The women buzz and twaddle over gowns and silks and gossip—the nonessential commodities of court life relegated to the female realm.

The court becomes oppressive, and I begin to reconsider the appeal of Wyatt’s teasing offer to hide me away in the country. I laugh at the idea as I slip down the stairs of the donjon and across the inner courtyard, hoping for a moment alone. The conduit burbles, but I still hear the knock of boots on stone behind me.

At the little gallery that leads to the middle courtyard I stop and turn. James Butler is practically on top of me.

“What are you doing?” The brutality in his voice is evident, but I refuse to back down and I won’t step away from him.

“Exactly as I please.”

My voice wobbles much less than my legs.

“You flirt with the whole damned court.” His voice is roupy, ratcheting out of his throat.

“Not with you.”

“That’s what I mean!” he shouts. I take a step back and glance quickly through the gallery to the empty courtyard beyond. No one else is in sight. “You should not be flirting with anyone. For soon you will be engaged to me. You will be my wife.”

“But we are not engaged.” Nor will we be. If I can help it.

“Letters crossed Wolsey’s desk this morning. Your father will be here any day. The Irish lords are pressing for my return. We will be married by the end of summer.”

My fingers grow cold and I rub them hard against my skirts to warm them. Summers in England are short.

“You speak as though you already know the outcome of your life.” I clear my throat to steady my voice. “But don’t we rely upon God and the king to bring these things about?”

“Wolsey knows the fates of men better than the king.”

It’s true. Wolsey is a puppet master, pulling all of our strings.

“It
will
happen,” Butler says, and I feel his presence as surely as I feel my breath. “And you will change your ways. If you don’t, even I won’t want to marry you.”

“So I should hide myself away like a nun in a convent because your father may agree to this marriage? Or maybe I should just wait until I grow old and undesirable and then truly join a convent.”