The Lady in the Tower (21 page)

We stood at the door of the great hall of Greenwich Palace, the Queen holding the little Princess by the hand while the barge came up. There was the King, great and glittering, his considerable size accentuated by the padded garments he wore—richly colored velvets scintillating with jewels. The Emperor looked almost insignificant beside him.

The King surveyed the scene with pleasure: his docile Queen, his pretty little daughter whom he was giving to the mighty Emperor as a sign of the amity between the two countries.

His eyes swept over us. Did they pause for a fraction of a second as they alighted on me? Did I glimpse the expression of anger? Was he going to remember every time he saw me, and one day, perhaps when he was in an ill temper, would he give vent to his resentment? The result of that would be—exit Anne Boleyn from Court.

But this was a happy occasion.

Little Mary behaved just as her mother had taught her to, and after that we went into the Palace.

Inside, we ladies talked together and someone said that when the Princess was twelve years old she and the Emperor would be married.

“Providing,” I said, “nothing happens to prevent it.”

“Hush,” I was told. “You should watch your tongue, Anne Boleyn.”

Was that not what the King had told me? It was true. I should, if I wanted to remain at Court, and there was no doubt in my mind that I did.

There were to be some exciting entertainments for the Emperor even though he was the sort of man who would rather be discussing politics. But the King must show him honor and what a brilliant Court was his. So there would be lavish festivities.

Charles had brought with him a large company of diplomats who were perhaps a little more eager to enjoy the merriment than their master was.

It was an exciting time for us all. We sat with the Queen and watched the jousting in the courtyard. The King was much to the fore. He was always the victor. I smiled to myself. Who would dare score over him; I had tried—in a different way, of course—and now here I was expecting every moment to be banished from Court.

He really was a magnificent sight. I often thought of François when I watched him. François glittered less; he never padded himself so outrageously; he wore subtle colors which always blended to perfection. The purple and gold of Henry would have been condemned as vulgar by him. He would say that the Tudors were
nouveau riche
, newcomers to power and glory and determined that no one should doubt for a moment that they now possessed it.

The joust always amused me, for there was an element of romantic love involved in it. The knights were supposed to be jousting for the honor of the ladies whom they would seduce and discard with impunity if given a chance. Henry himself rode a horse resplendent in silver, with the motto in black and gold:
Elle mon côeur a navera
. Who was she who had broken his heart? Certainly not the Queen. Certainly not my sister Mary or any of the ladies whom he honored. It was a game and he was always a player of games. In that respect he never grew up.

Of course he was triumphant. He came to the Queen afterward and bowed before her, playing the faithful husband who had been true to her over the years in spite of the fact that she had bitterly disappointed him in not giving him the son he longed for.

After the joust there was to be a banquet at York House, the Cardinal's splendid palace which rivaled the royal residences. There was to be a masque afterward in which I was to take part.

It was a most brilliant occasion. The hall was decorated with rich brocade and tapestries, and lighted with what must have been a thousand candles. But what was so exciting was that the floor had been covered with green material to resemble grass, and at one end of the room had been erected a building which was the exact replica of a castle in miniature. Banners hung from the towers, from which came the sound of music.

At the sight of it everyone gasped with admiration. Only my lord Cardinal could go to the expense of providing such a setting for the night's entertainment, they said.

At the battlements of this mock tower sat eight ladies all clad in white satin; they had been chosen for their fair hair, blue eyes and very white skins. They were the Virtues and they all bore placards—Beauty, Honor, Kindness, Constancy, Pity, Mercy and so on. Seated on the mock greensward at the foot of the castle were the opposite of the Virtues, the Vices. I as amused—and a little piqued—that they had chosen brunettes to play the wicked Disdain, Danger, Unkindness, Jealousy and other failings.

Then the knights came into the hall, dressed in blue satin and cloth of gold. They carried labels on their feathered and jeweled caps such as Loyalty, Pleasure, Youth; and they were led by one more magnificently attired than any of them, who was recognizable at once by his size if by nothing else. The King was Ardent Desire. I failed to see that that was necessarily a virtue.

He led the attack on the castle. The fair ladies welcomed the knights—presumably they were intended to be prisoners of the wicked brunettes who tried to hold off the knights. Cannons outside the palace were fired to add to the effect. A brilliant idea, said everyone. Trust Wolsey to do something different. The dark ladies pelted the knights with rose petals and sugar plums; the knights’ weapons were dates and oranges.

Evidently the oranges and dates were the more effective weapons, and soon the castle was in the hands of the valiant knights, the Vices defeated and the Virtues rescued.

Then the galliard began.

The King, of course, was the center of the dancing. I wondered what Charles and his ambassadors thought of this. They looked rather pleased, so perhaps they thought that one who took such delight in this kind of entertainment would be easy to outwit in the diplomatic field. Perhaps so. But they could be forgetting the Cardinal.

As one of the ladies of the Queen's household, I joined in the dance. I was close to the King and again was aware of his attention. Of one thing I was certain now—he had not forgotten that scene in the garden and still held it against me.

I shall always remember that night because during it I first became aware of Henry Percy.

He was in the household of Cardinal Wolsey. We danced together and afterward sat engaged in conversation. It was obvious to me that he admired me, and there was a quality in him which appealed to me. He was modest and rather gentle. He told me that I was quite different from the other ladies at the Court, and he left me in no doubt that he found the difference pleasing.

“You have not been long at Court,” he said. “I have seen you now and then… but only recently.”

“Are you often at Court?”

“I am in the Cardinal's household and have to attend on him every day. That often brings me to the Palace.”

“I am with the Queen's household.”

“Yes, I know. You are Mistress Anne Boleyn.”

“How did you know?”

He flushed a little. “I…I asked your name. I know that you have come recently from France. Do you think the Court here different from that of France?”

“In many respects, yes.”

“Do you regret leaving France?”

“Only now and then.”

“Are you regretting it now?”

“No,” I said honestly, “I am not,” and we laughed together.

“I have been here so long,” he said. “My father was insistent that I should be brought up in the Cardinal's household.”

“It is a good training for Court life, doubtless.”

“That will be my lot. When possible, I go back to the North.”

“So you come from there? You know my name. What is yours?”

“Henry Algernon Percy.”

“You come from the North. Your name is Percy. Then you must be related to the Northumberlands.”

“The Earl is my father.”

“And do you long to go back home?”

“It is so long since I lived at Alnwick that it no longer seems to be my home. I have been back of course… then when I leave it I feel home-sick. The air is different there…free and fresh.”

“How is the Cardinal?”

“Well, I think.”

“I mean as a master?”

“He does not concern himself with his pages.”

I laughed. “You are of a noble house and he is the son of a butcher, yet you must consider it an honor to be received into his house. Does that not strike you as strange?”

“Put like that, perhaps. But he is a brilliant statesman and I the not very clever son of the house. My father does not think much of me. I believe he wishes one of my brothers were the elder.”

“Parents are rarely satisfied with their children. But then, are children always satisfied with their parents? What a pity we cannot choose each other! That would be more satisfactory.”

“But difficult to arrange.”

“Tell me about yourself.”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Of course I do. What of these brothers who are so much more worthy than you?”

“Thomas and Ingelram? We get along well together when we meet, which is not often, my being down here in the service of the Cardinal and they… lucky creatures… being up there in the North.”

“How you love that place! I should like to see it.”

“One day I must show you Alnwick.”

“The family home…”

“Home of the Percy clan for generations. It is very ancient. Of course it has been added to and altered since it was first cut out of the deep ravine on the south bank of the River Alne. It was there before the Norman Conquest and was the home of Saxon lords. It was the year 1309 before it came into the possession of the Percys. Now it is very much ours. We have put our stamp on it.”

“Very different from Hever, my home. That, I believe, was acquired by my great-grandfather, who was a merchant and Lord Mayor of London. A little better than a butcher perhaps—but trade nonetheless.”

He looked at me admiringly. “I can only applaud him for being the great-grandfather of the most charming lady at Court.”

“You know how to pay compliments.”

“I don't usually. But now I have only to speak the truth.”

“They are beginning to dance,” I said. “Shall we join them?”

“I am a poor dancer.”

“I am a good one, and all you have to do is follow me.”

It was true that he was no dancer, but I liked him the better for that. There was a delightful honesty about him.

He said: “I liked better talking to you, which one cannot do seriously in the dance. I like to look at you because I have never seen anyone like you. I cannot believe you really exist…unless I keep my eyes on you.”

“I assure you I am no phantom.”

I bantered a little with him, but he was very serious. I enjoyed his admiration, and I felt drawn to him as I never had to any other person.

“I shall look for you,” he said. “I come to the palace every day with the Cardinal to wait on the King, so I shall be near you. The Cardinal is often closeted with him for a very long time.”

“And his attendants must wait for him?”

“They can wander round the gardens…providing they do not stray too far.”

“I see.”

“And the Queen's maids of honor?”

“They, too, often wander in the gardens.”

“I shall look for you,” he said.

I smiled and thought, though I did not say it: And I shall look for you.

That was the beginning. Our friendship grew. Friendship? It was more than that. I awoke each morning in a state of such happiness as I had never known before, asking myself whether I should see him that day. I realized that this was falling in love.

He was different from the other young men. He was earnest and sincere. It was not surprising that, in a Court of shams, I should prize these qualities.

It had never occurred to me that I could fall in love so easily. I had seen too much of the relationships between the sexes to trust them. There were the flowery phrases, the
billets doux
, the compliments, the flattery… and then it was all over. I had never thought that something doomed to be so ephemeral was worth the trouble until now.

But Henry Percy was not like the others. When he said I was different from all others, he meant it. When he said he had thought of nothing else but me since we had met, he meant that too. Trust was a wonderful thing to have for another person; and that was what I had in him.

The weeks began to pass. I used to watch for Wolsey's arrival at the palace. He came in his barge often—a splendid figure in his Cardinal's robes with his attendants all about him. He traveled with almost as much state as the King. I would look among those young men about him, and my gaze would come to rest on one of them.

As soon as he saw me, a beautiful smile would illuminate his features. He was not handsome, and I liked him the better for that. He would never be the champion at the jousts, and I was glad. He was without that pride of which I saw so much. I loved him and part of my love was protective. I wanted to look after him. I wanted to leave all this meaningless pomp and go with him to that windswept castle where, he told me, the Percys were kings of the North as surely as Henry was King of England. “Kings… under kings,” he said. “But the people of the North would have no one to rule them but the Percys.”

He would take me over the castle and show me the sally port which was one of the sixteen towers flanking the castle; he would show me that spot they called the Bloody Gap, the name given to a breach in the walls
made by the Scots during the Border Wars which had raged intermittently throughout the centuries. He would show me Hotspur's Seat, which had been a favorite spot of his gallant ancestor, the fierce Hotspur who had died at the Battle of St. Albans. He made me see the castle keep, the gatehouse and the statues of warriors placed at intervals along the parapet as though to remind all comers of the might of the Percys.

And it seemed that there was an understanding between us that day that we should be together always.

Being in love changed everything. I even looked different. I was absent-minded. “What is the matter with Anne Boleyn?” asked my companions. “I believe she is in love.”

Was it so obvious?

I would wait for the coming of the Cardinal and, if for some reason he did not come, that was a sad day for me, one to be got through as quickly as possible.