The King's Rose (10 page)

“Not even on a day such as this?” One girl sighs languidly. I feel perspiration collecting on my upper lip. “Definitely not on a day such as this.”

I drop a card on the table, my eyes still lowered.

“Is that true?”

Jane shuffles her cards before answering. “Yes. Yes, it is true.”

I drop my hand and walk quietly to the privy chamber, the inner sanctum in the royal apartments, to which only Jane and a few senior ladies are allowed entry.

I’m ashamed at myself for not reprimanding those girls for speaking the name of the witch in my presence. She must have been a witch, to have charmed the king the way that she did. He risked everything to be with Anne. He separated from the pope to be with her, and was excommunicated from the church. He banished his wife and shunned his own daughter in order to make her his, and planned a glittering coronation before the former queen was even dead. He made all of England swear to honor her as queen, and their issue the rightful heir to the throne.

Now I am his wife, but no coronation date has been set. He has not visited my bed in a fortnight. We have been married only a few months, and already I feel my power slipping away from me, sapped from me in the stifling summer heat.

I hear the door open and I look up to see Jane enter the room.

“What did she do, to bewitch him so?” I blurt out. “How did she do it? I need to know.”

“Don’t say such things, Catherine.”

“But he risked all to be with her. She had power over him.”

“No, she didn’t, not really, as evidenced by her sad end.”

“But before then, she did have power over him. All of court could see it.”

“What about your power, Catherine? Are you saying King Henry is slipping away from you already?” she inquires sharply. I turn away, not wanting her to see my anger. “It is not in your best interest to keep secrets, Catherine. I must know everything. That way we can plan our strategy.” The thought of strategy makes me want to laugh—a dark laugh, void of joy. They’ve married me off to an old, ailing monarch who barely has the stamina to indulge his own passions—what strategy could help me now?

“It is the fault of the weather—the heat,” I inform her. “That is all. It has nothing to do with me.”

“True enough,” Jane says, sitting beside me on the bed. “Anne Boleyn matters no more. She hasn’t mattered for a long time. Only you matter now. You are the Howard upon the throne.”

“I am the Howard upon the throne,” I murmur, listless. The heat in this chamber is stunning; I feel it pressing upon me from all sides.

“You have to get pregnant, Catherine. That is all there is for it.”

I drop onto the bed, weary, powerless. How can I have any hope of getting pregnant if the king is too ill to visit my bedchamber? How charming, how lovely, how enticing do I have to be to pull him out of the mire of illness and age?

“I don’t know if I can do it,” I tell her.

“You haven’t any choice.”

The heat has driven the court on progress; a change of scenery often serves to rejuvenate Henry and eases the swelling of his legs. We’ve just arrived at Grafton in Northamptonshire, and shall remain here through early September. The roads were dusty, and we’ve now seen weeks without rain. But there is good hunting here, which has already done wonders for Henry’s disposition. He was more energetic today than I’ve seen him in a while, and it gives me hope that his health will improve. I pray for this, both for his sake and for mine.

“The rain will come soon, to relieve us,” Jane assures me, sensing my nerves. The air in my bedchamber is heavy, still. Only candles are lit around the bed, and I’m wearing the lightest silk nightdress, the outline of my naked form easily visible as the moonlight slants in the window.

“The linens are fresh and cool,” she tells me, smoothing her palm over the coverlet. I’m relieved to have left Hampton for another miniature court, though the court on progress is considerably larger than the small party we had at Oatlands Palace. Still, I’m hoping that this handsome, intimate country manor will inspire the king to visit me.

The door opens, and Henry enters. Jane bows and hastily takes her leave. I’m standing by the window, letting the pale light filter through my thin gown.

“Catherine,” he breathes; I can see that his steps are labored. “Are you tired?”

“It was a wearying day,” I say cautiously, “but I’m glad that you’re here.”

“I am as well.” He moves forward and embraces me, but only briefly. “But I think I must bid you good night. You look lovely, as always, but tired. You need your rest.”

The king’s eyes are red, the lids drooping.

“Of course, my lord. I will be better rested tomorrow.”

And with that, he takes his leave. In spite of the heavy air, a chill runs up my spine. There will be no hope of another heir for England if the king is not well enough to visit my bed. I look out the window over the garden, where the roses droop upon their vines in the heat. I close my eyes and pray for rain.

I blow out the candles, then take to my high bed and slip between the cool sheets, in search of a dream that may distract me from my concerns. I find here, in the dim shadows of blue and gray, an old dream about Thomas.

We are in the garden together, and the sky is pitch-black and splattered with stars. I rush into his arms and we share our first kiss. I dwell on this one moment again and again, adding in further kisses besides. In my dream, Thomas is bold and I respond to his touch with reckless eagerness; we have nothing to lose, or to fear. In my dream, I am simply Catherine, without any further claims upon my heart aside from the one that dwells there, swells there now:
Thomas, I love you, I want to be with you, I want to be yours forever . . .

Jane will scold me for this, somehow. She knows everything about me. The courses of my monthly blood and the nature of my nightly excretions into the chamber pot are common topics for chatter among the maids in my household, there is no doubt. There is much speculation about my acts with the king when we are alone together in the royal bed, and what those acts may come to, and when we may see those results. My dreams are perhaps the only private thing I have left to myself—for there is no way the ladies can pull them from me, though I’m sure they would try if they could. I’ve always had a penchant for dreaming. I can’t completely change everything about myself simply because I am queen.

“DRINK THIS.”

I open my eyes to find the duchess standing over my bed. I am not particularly surprised; what details of my life she is not privy to I’m sure Jane supplies. I’ve spent the last few nights with the king, now that the progress has begun to revive him. Quickly on the heels of either success or disaster, there is the duchess, eager to appraise the situation with her critical eye and tell me what next to do.

She holds out a goblet and pushes it into my hand. The liquid within is cloudy, with a strange, musty odor of dirt and dried herbs.

“What is it?”

“Drink it. It will help you.”

“Help me what?”

“Help you become pregnant, that’s what.” She turns to Lady Rochford, already pulling out my gown for today’s wear. “No, Jane, the ice-blue one. It’s very hot today. We must keep Catherine looking cool, serene.”

“We were only married this summer,” I remind the duchess, alarmed by her impatience. “I haven’t had much time.”

“You will never have enough time, Catherine, remember that. Immediacy is vital. You were in his bedchamber last night. Yes? And then you came here to sleep?”

“Yes. The king told me he would be waking early in the morning for the hunt.”

These days and nights at Grafton have made all the difference in the king’s health and disposition. We’ve adopted a more relaxed existence on this progress, adjourning to the king’s parlor in the evenings for a recital—I on the lute and Henry on the virginals—and we dine in private before adjourning to bed. Still, the heat is detrimental; the king is not restored to the robust energy he displayed on our honeymoon in Surrey. When he looks at me, he sees his reclaimed youth. When I look at the king, I see his mortality. We are like two sides of a strange, distorted mirror.

“Indeed,” the duchess murmurs thoughtfully. “And your monthly blood, has it arrived yet? How do you feel?”

A familiar ache twinges in my belly at these words, but I haven’t the heart to tell the duchess about it.

“I’m not sure, yet. I can’t be certain.”

“Drink up,” she says succinctly, pushing the glass toward me.

I struggle to sip the grayish drink. Back at Lambeth I used to fear pregnancy. Though I followed the advice the ladies gave me to protect myself, there were nights when Francis was too persistent to dissuade. Anxious days were spent pondering what would become of me if I were with child; Francis’s promises of marriage did nothing to quell my fears. Now my entire existence is hinged upon becoming pregnant, and the habitual lateness of my monthly blood continues to fool me, cheat me into thinking that I have achieved my singular objective.

I am sure that Henry thinks of it even more than I do. I sense in him a great desire for affection, as if he has long been starved for this type of intimacy. And underlying all of his pleasure is that hope, that prayer. When he rests his hand tentatively upon my belly, I feel fully aware of all that is expected of me, though I know not what else to do to make it come about.

“There is more we must discuss,” the duchess continues, adjusting the collar of my linen shift with brisk efficacy. “You must ask him about your coronation.”

Though I wish to dismiss the subject, it does worry me. I am royal consort and have assumed the title of queen upon marriage, but have yet to be officially anointed as such. This will be imperative in order to secure my place upon the throne, and to secure my progeny within the line of succession. With deep resentment I recall the soaring triumph (brief though it was) of Queen Anne seated upon her royal barge, the gentle swell of her belly visible beneath her glistening gown.

“It is more difficult than that.”

“What is difficult about it?”

“I cannot ask him until I know that I am pregnant.”

“I think you had better ask him about it sooner than that. There is no use wasting time, Catherine. He was well prepared to hold a coronation for that German lass just a month after their wedding, if only she had lived up to his expectations.”

“The king has very high expectations.”

“As well he should, Catherine. He is the king. My question is this: if last winter he was so eager to have a queen that he planned to crown a German, why is it that he is taking his time in crowning you?”

“I do not know,” I tell her. “Perhaps it is the heat. Perhaps he will change his mind in the colder weather.”

The duchess sighs briskly, her nostrils flared.

“Think, Catherine: if you were to be crowned and bear a son, your triumph would be greater even than that of Queen Jane, who was never officially crowned. Your triumph would be the greatest of all the queens.” Her eyes turn glassy for a moment, as if gazing at the brilliant tableau she has just conjured in her mind.

“You must broach the subject with him. You know what I mean—cajole him a bit. Be flirtatious. Surely you’ve learned those tricks by now.”

“Yes, Duchess.”

“Use your feminine wiles, Catherine. They are very powerful if used deftly, very powerful, indeed. And besides, they are all that you have.”

“Yes, Duchess.”

“And remember:
every night.
He must visit you every night. Do whatever you need to do to make that happen.”

I am only a young girl,
I think to tell her.
I am not a magician. I am not a witch.
I can make the king feel young again, but I cannot actually make him young.

To day we ride south to Bedfordshire, and plan to stay at Ampthill for a fortnight. It seems a large task to move so many people. A significant portion of my household and the king’s accompanies us on our summer progress, as well as an assortment of advisers, cooks, and additional servants. Still, I need do startlingly little. My role in this performance is all show, while my clothes, my jewels, my belongings are prepared behind the scenes.

A line of carts is drawn up before the manor, and the grooms of the stables walk among them and pass their hands over them to make sure our belongings are properly secured before we depart. The young men tug on rough ropes and tighten fat knots; their hands are dark brown with dirt and thick with calluses. I look down at my own hands—small, soft, and pale against my blue riding habit. The horses are tacked and ready, my silver mare bridling at the front of the group beside the king’s enormous hunter. The mare is a beauty; a groom brushes her flanks and her pale gray coat glistens in the early morning sunshine. The king chose her for me—a good, reliable horse for a long ride.

“You miss her, don’t you,” a low voice says, so close to me that I start at the sound of it. Thomas sidles up beside me, admiring the mare. I feel embarrassed, suddenly, awkward in his presence.

“Who?”

“Your little Molly, that brown horse you rode when you first came to court.”

“My pretty, perky Molly.” I sigh. “She’s asleep in her stable at Westminster. Not a proper horse for a ride such as this.”

“But you still miss her.”

I’m hesitant to admit this in earshot of the beautiful horse the king gifted to me. And why should Thomas be the one privy to my secret thoughts?

“Yes,” I tell him. He smiles and offers a low hand to cup my foot and help me onto the saddle. I pause, but only for a moment. Once mounted, I arrange my habit in a pleasing fashion for the ride.

“I understand,” Thomas says, handing me the reins. “It’s natural to miss something you love, no matter what it is. Even a little brown horse. Sometimes a replacement just isn’t the same as the original, but you’ll get used to her.”