VIII (21 page)

Today I dine in the Presence Chamber, sitting in
state, alone at the table, though the room is packed. It is an honour to watch the king eat.

The scene before me jumps and crackles with colour: the gilded blue of the ceiling; the polished gold of the plates; the crimson silks and purple velvets of the courtiers who stand around me; the yellows and greens of slashed satin and draped cloaks; the jarring glitter of jewels and spangles; the frantic colours of a million threads in the tapestries lining the walls.

The food appears. Steam rises from the pies as they are slit open like stomachs – curling tendrils of steam that wind their fingers into the air, melting the colours of the scene behind.

I watch the colours begin to run, to drip, to collect in dark puddles on the floor. And as the colours melt, the people around me seem to exude a rank smell, mingled with sickly gusts of perfume. As they bow I notice the grease of their hair; as their hands move objects on the table, I see flakes of skin fall; I see the yellow rind of their nails, their rheumy eyes, their pox
scars. A man leans in to set down a plate and I catch sight of a boil on his neck, only half-concealed by the collar of his shirt.

My gaze is drawn to the doorway at the far end of the chamber – the doorway to the next public room. The space is packed with people, but for an instant, in that sea of ugly faces, one stands out.

It is a young man with straw-coloured hair. He is deep in the throng, his body hidden by the bodies in front, but what I can see of him is peculiarly vivid, as if he is somehow closer to me than all the rest: the yellow hair, the darkly shadowed eyes; I can see the texture of his skin – coarse and sallow. He looks ill-fed; his face is angular, more gaunt than I remember. But what is most arresting is the calm, unswerving certainty of his gaze. No crying today. He seems to fix me with a terrifying scrutiny.

Lurching to my feet, I turn away. I head for the other door; the door to my private apartments. Insects crunch beneath my feet. Something scutters across the floor in front of me and disappears beneath the hangings.

Away from the crowds, I walk along the gallery, past windows that make a rhythm of shadows on the floor: light, dark, light, dark.

Outside, the rain is a grey curtain; we are closed in by water. Beyond, unseen, I feel the forest on the march, eating up the open grassland, strangling the clipped gardens.

Reaching my secret study, I dismiss the servants and sit alone.

No candles are lit. The panelling is dark, the corners dingy – the shadows reach out, consuming the light; swallowing it whole, like an egg.

Time passes. Perhaps minutes, or hours.

I struggle to think. I have no empire, no sons. And now my last hope – that I will be king of France, and that my 
grandson will be a great emperor after me – is snatched away.

Yet how can it have come to this? My glorious destiny was foretold in the prophecy: it is God’s
will
.

Surely, there can be only one explanation: God is telling me that something is wrong – that something displeases Him. That, until I correct it, my destiny will not be fulfilled.

What can it be that is wrong?

I am God’s Chosen. That is the basic fact – irreducible – from which all thinking must begin.

So, it follows that the thing that displeases God cannot be me.

Coming from the darkest corner of the room now, I hear a faint scraping and scratching, as if a creature with talons or claws is crouching there. I sense rather than see movement in the pitch black; I detect a shift in the current of air.

Frightened, I grip the arms of my chair, widening my eyes to stare into the shadows. But I can see nothing there.

Slowly, in creeping steps of logic, I reason it out: if the thing that displeases God
cannot
be me, then it must be a thing – or person – other than myself.

Oh merciful God, speak to me. Show me who it is that displeases you.

Nothing answers. I feel as if the darkness could engulf me. Somewhere in the impenetrable shadows, where the unseen creature crouches, I imagine the black mouth of a bottomless pit.

Then, at last, there is a sound from the far end of the room: the door, opening – and closing again.

Someone has slipped in. At first I can make out only a vague shape: an arched block of colour, like a church window. It is a woman.

It is Catherine.

Surfacing, I push my wet hair out of my eyes.
The clean white linen of my bathing shirt clings to my skin, heavy and dripping, as I wade to the side of the pool.

“I asked God to speak to me. He has been speaking to me – for years. With each dead child.” Rolling into the water again, I lean back and stretch my arms along the stone edging. “Catherine is the problem. I need a new wife.”

Wolsey, sweating in his heavy robes, is sitting on a bench by the wall. He is blotting his face methodically with a large handkerchief, which he folds and refolds, searching for a dry surface. “You know, sir,” he says from behind it, “there’s a man of mine – by the name of Thomas Cromwell – says his mother gave birth to him at fifty.”

“I am not floating ideas. Neither am I asking for your advice – or your opinion. I am issuing instructions.”

The handkerchief stops. He lowers it, examines it on his lap, smoothing its fringed edging of Venice gold and red silk. At last he says, “Are you sure about this?”

“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”

I watch my legs floating in front of me, the loose fabric undulating in the water. In the corner of the room the stove gurgles; it is green-glazed and bulbous, like a huge,
water-heating
toad. Wolsey passes a hand over his face; gets up; paces. “For the Pope to annul the marriage would not be unprecedented, of course. Louis XII of France put aside his first wife… and Louis VI before him…” He stops. “A slight problem might be posed by the dispensation…”

“Oh, I’m sure you can find a way.”

He meets my gaze. “Yes,” he says steadily. “I’m sure I can.” He walks again, trailing one hand on the tiled wall. “And the Queen, sir. Have you…?”

“There’s no need to tell her yet. I want everything arranged first, so that when it happens, it happens fast.”

Wolsey has stopped. A square of light shines down from a window, high up on the wall behind him. Beyond it, he is in shadow. I realise that his hand is not touching the wall idly;

it is there to support him.

“Are you in pain?”

For a moment he doesn’t move. Then he shakes his head. “No, sir, it’s nothing. Just stomach gripes. They pass.” Another pause. He pushes himself off the wall, stepping into the light. “There. Better now.” His face is pale and waxy; he smiles. “Well. A new marriage presents a wonderful political opportunity. Do you have anyone in mind? Say, a French princess?”

“I’m not having one of the Emperor’s pox-ridden sisters, if that’s the alternative.” I hold my nose and prepare to go under. “You can draw up a list.”

The names are chalked on the slate at the top
end of the bowling alley:

“Compton? Not you?”

“I’ll do the usual, sir.”

“So self-effacing,” mutters George Boleyn. “Does he have no competitive instinct?”

“On the contrary, George, I think he’s so competitive he daren’t risk losing.” I sling Compton my bag of coins. “He’d never survive it.”

We’re all to play together. I elect to be the last to bowl, since my favourite tactic is to knock the other woods out of the way.

Both sides of the bowling alley are lined with unglazed windows, open to the gardens beyond. At the top end, where we wait to play, there are seats and wooden windowsills to lean on. Compton throws the jack and Seymour is the first to bowl; I gaze out at the orchard, where the trees are laden with blossom.

“Oh, nice. If it just hadn’t curved away at the end…” Boleyn grins, ignoring Seymour’s glare. “Norris? Are you going next?”

I turn to the gardens again. Something outside is irritating me. Bees drone, stop, and drone again, as they crawl into flowers and swing away; birds chirrup repetitively, all on one note.

Among the fruit trees, several of Catherine’s maids of honour are walking with some gentlemen of the Privy Chamber. I watch the teasing social dance: the men bend in, solicitous; the women step away, and laugh.

Seeing the ebb and flow of a group as it moves – conversations beginning or ending, people breaking away, fresh gambits made, accepted or refused – you can tell who holds most power.

Here it is an unlikely figure: a slight girl with a face too odd and pointed to be beautiful. It is the same girl I saw on the turret-top that day at the tournament: George’s younger sister, Anne.

I see men, intrigued, trying to make her laugh – trying to say something clever enough to win her approval. I see women, in spare moments from their own conversations, glance at her with mistrust or plain dislike. It is a puzzle: she hasn’t the rank, the money or the looks to be so assured.

“Good shot!”

Wyatt turns away, dusting off his hands and grinning. It’s me up next.

At the far end of the alley, the woods – each the shape of a squashed sphere, like a whole cheese – cluster around the small white jack. Some of the woods have been overshot; others, too tentatively thrown, have fallen short.

I swing my arm back, and launch my wood. It arcs up the curved bank of the clay wall, overtaking Seymour’s and Norris’s, and descends at speed, knocking out Boleyn’s, which rolls on, into a corner.

There’s applause all round as I walk back up the alley. I’m limping, still – my left leg, though the skin has healed, is uncomfortable and swollen. But I don’t sit; I lean on the sill again and stare out at the orchard.

In recent months I have caught myself thinking more and more about this young woman – God knows why; it makes no sense to me. What is she? An insignificant girl with nothing to recommend her but a quick wit and those strange dark eyes – eyes that can flash with merciless hilarity, then look blank as a frozen pond.

I have even gone so far as to make my interest plain. But her response has been confusing, drawing me in one minute, pushing me away the next. Which is downright impudent.

She is no great lady, after all; she is a girl about Court, who should be worth no more than a brief bit of fun – some easy entertainment – and then forgotten.

But it is getting worse. The feeling, the interest – whatever it is – has become an annoyance, like my leg wound, which itches and aches, and festers.

Seymour’s just thrown. “Best shot yet,” Compton calls from the far end. He holds up a finger and thumb. “Inch off the jack.”

Norris throws, then Boleyn. Wyatt’s wood cannons Seymour’s out of the way.

“A lucky kiss,” says Wyatt, holding up his hands.

As he walks back up the alley, Wyatt keeps turning to the windows; he has been watching George’s sister too. There is something pained in his expression that I recognise all too well.

“Sir?”

I turn.

“Your wood, sir.” Norris hands it to me.

The last throw. I step forward to take it. It is another good shot: the wood swings in from the wall as before and comes to rest only just beyond the jack.

Compton hops about, looking at the balls from different angles. “Close-run thing. It’s between you, sir, and Wyatt.”

So Wyatt and I approach, to examine the state of play.

On the little finger of my right hand there is a small ring – a woman’s ring. A topaz only – nothing costly. I slip it onto my index finger – it cannot even pass the first joint – and point to the jack.

“Wyatt, I tell you it is mine.” I’m grinning.

Wyatt catches sight of the ring, and his eyes flick up to my face. He knows where the ring comes from: it is Anne’s. He hesitates – then, grinning too, he digs inside his doublet and produces a small pearl on a length of ribbon.

“But if you’ll just let me measure the distance, Your Grace, I hope I’ll find it’s actually mine.”

The pearl, the ribbon: I recognise them. Anne’s too.

Wyatt kneels and stretches the ribbon between the two woods and the jack, comparing distances – looks up at me, and, seeing my expression, instantly blanches. The ribbon goes slack; he slowly rises to his feet.

Before he can think what to say I am gone, striding as fast as my sore leg allows, back up the bowling alley and out through the door into the orchard.

Everyone hears the door bang; groups split and fall back
before I reach them, clearing a path to let me through.

At the end of one line stands Anne. I stop in front of her, breathing heavily. She curtsies low and then straightens, perfectly composed.

“May I speak with you a moment?” I say, and take her upper arm without waiting for a reply. I steer her towards a half-built arbour a short way off. I know my grip is uncomfortably tight, but she doesn’t complain, just walks quickly to keep up with me, steadying her skirts with her free hand.

The arbour is a stone bay window, glassless and roofless. As we step in, I let go and she turns to face me.

“Have you…” My voice sounds strangled. I clear my throat. “Have you given yourself to Wyatt?”

For a moment, her eyes register something disconcertingly like curiosity. Then she says, “Your Grace. If this is about the pearl, I didn’t give it to him; he stole it from me three days ago, and has been taunting me with it ever since.” She folds her hands against her dress. “As for myself, sir, I give myself to no one.”

“Anne, forgive me.” I feel suddenly desperate. “You are plaguing me.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“In my head, I mean. I…” Exasperated, I snatch off my cap and rub my hair roughly. “Look – did you read my letter?”

“Which one?”

I stare at her, then press on. “My offer still stands. You could be my acknowledged mistress. No one has been offered that before.”

She blinks, catlike, saying nothing.

“You will have status.”

Still no response.

“And I will not even so much as glance at another woman.”

“Except your wife.”

“Of course, but—”

“Then, sir, I thank you for your favour, but I must ask you to look for your
amusement
elsewhere.” She gestures towards the garden. “There are plenty of eager, pretty little things out there who would consider it an honour to please you, surely?”

I look at her. She doesn’t flinch.

“Anne. I’m not enjoying this. It’s irritating. It’s…”
Torture
, I could say. I take a breath, effortfully. “I will not ask like this again. I don’t know where this stupid feeling has come from – or why. But I can train myself out of it. I
will
.”

It is a threat, and I like my threats to be met with alarm and apology. Instead I sense amusement; something sidelong, quick and mischievous in her eyes; as if, wherever my thoughts are heading, she’s got there before me and is waiting further up the track, hidden by the trees – watching me, laughing.

She says, “I would have hesitated to use the word if you had not used it first, sir, but I agree that it is stupid to urge me to give up my honour. My future husband and the children God will grant us would not thank me for throwing it away.”

There is a silence. I find that I am shaking.

“Then you may consider this – whatever it is – at an end. My Lady.”

I walk away – not back to the orchard, but on, towards the palace. I want to go inside without looking back, but I don’t make it. Almost at the door to my private stairs, I turn. In the distance the girl is gliding away across the grass, heading back to the orchard, trailing picked stems of poppies against her skirts. Untroubled.

I watch her go. I know full well that nothing is remotely at an end. On the contrary, it occurs to me that she has issued a challenge.