VIII (8 page)

“Three shillings says she has a wart.”

“Where?” says Compton. Behind me Charles Brandon laughs.

My horse is jittery. I let it walk forward a little way and then I turn it again, saying, “I thought we were sticking to facial disfigurements.”

Beneath the leaden skies of a November morning we are waiting on horseback in St George’s Fields, an open space on the south bank of the Thames, not far from London Bridge. We’re preparing – along with numerous bishops, an archbishop and a crowd of earls and lords – to line up as a welcoming party for Princess Catherine of Aragon, Arthur’s Spanish bride.

It’s been drizzling for the last ten minutes. The surface of my cloak is covered with a fine mist of droplets, my legs are beginning to feel distinctly damp, and my nose is so cold I’ve lost all sense of whether it’s still there or not. The only thing cheering me is the possibility that Princess Catherine will
be ugly.

“How about smallpox scars?” suggests Francis Bryan, beside me. Bryan is one of the well-born boys I spend my lessons and my leisure-time with – his father is a trusted servant of the King.

“Harry Guildford’s put money on that already,” says Compton.

“All right, a moustache. Two shillings. And no quibbling, Compton: any dark hair visible on the upper lip and you pay out.”

“I thought she was fair-haired,” says Thomas Boleyn.

Of the friends and attendants who serve me, some are boys like me, and others are older: grown-up young men who advance their careers by working in my service. Boleyn, an ambitious knight’s son, aged twenty-four, is in this last group. Francis Bryan is my own age. Harry Guildford, whose father is a royal councillor, is a couple of years older. Compton, who is nineteen, and Brandon, seventeen, are somewhere in between. But age does not decide seniority: I am the master here, and I am ten.

“Fair-haired?” Bryan echoes Boleyn’s words. “And Spanish? Is that possible?”

“If she’s really awful,” cuts in Brandon, “is Arthur allowed to refuse to marry her?”

“No,” I say, grinning. And that’s why, of course, my hopes are running so high. Since this marriage, as my father has explained so clearly to me, turns me into a nobody – the backup son who’s not needed any more – I want it to make Arthur suffer too. As much as possible. And I think a hideous bride would be an excellent start.

Now a scout brings news that the Spanish party is close by, approaching over the open land that lies between here
and Lambeth. We form an order. Being, of course, the senior duke present, I position myself at the front.

Coming into view, a strange sight: a collection of oddly dressed figures, making towards us not on horses, but on mules. In the centre there’s a girl, her face hidden by the broad brim of her hat. She’s sitting very upright on a saddle no less foreign-looking than the rest of her outfit: it has a cross-brace that lies like a stepladder on the mule’s back. She is perched on top, swaying as the beast walks.

The Spanish party halts, leaving a stretch of damp, marshy grass standing empty between us. It’s my job to make the first communication.

I walk my horse forward, somewhat squelchily.

Dear God, please let her be ugly…

The girl – Princess Catherine – looks up. Beneath the hat her face is softly rounded, with a pink and white complexion and a pretty dimpled chin. Her long auburn hair is loose, and blowing sideways in the wind.

Damn
.

I have prepared a greeting in Spanish – I’ve learned it by rote. I declaim it, thinking,
All right, then, pretty but ill-natured
…

Hearing the Spanish, Catherine breaks into a delighted, grateful smile. She nods encouragingly when I stumble over the unfamiliar pronunciation.

All right – pretty, sweet-tempered, but slow-witted… please, slow-witted—

And when I have finished she replies, thanking me elegantly, in fluent French.

Smelly?

It’s my last hope.

An unlikely one, though, going by the clean, shining hair and the beautifully kept clothes, with ruffles of spotless white
linen just visible at her neck and wrists.

I give in. I’m disappointed. Even so, I can’t stop watching her, as my father’s heralds organise us, dovetailing the two companies – Spanish and English – into a single long procession. It’s as if I think she’s a mirage, and any moment now she’s going to transform into something else – or disappear altogether.

Catherine and I head the procession, riding together. The drizzle, thankfully, has stopped. Our task now is to make a formal entry into the City of London, so that Catherine can receive its welcome. First we have to cross the river.

We approach London Bridge, where the rotting heads of executed criminals are splayed at crazy angles on pikes above the entrance gate.

Catherine’s hat must be shielding her from the view; she says, “How beautiful your country is! I am so happy to be in England.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I say, “and England is overjoyed to welcome you.”

The bridge crouches across the river on twenty stone piers, a crush of fine houses and shops on its back. When we’re halfway over, we stop to see a ‘pageant’, which is to say a little show – part of the City’s welcome. The stage is a specially built wooden tower, where City ladies dressed as Saint Catherine and Saint Ursula stand, attended by heavenly maidens, who all seem a bit shivery. The saints make speeches – long ones – in verse, and entirely in English.

Glancing to my left, I see Catherine’s delicate brows drawn together.

I say in French, “Can you follow the sense of it?”

Nodding and smiling for the benefit of the performers, Catherine replies in a low voice, “Nothing after the ‘welcoming, aiding and assisting’ bit. I’m afraid my English
isn’t good enough.”

“Saint Catherine’s saying that Christ is your first husband, and Arthur your second. You need to love them both, but in that order.”

Catherine whispers her thanks to me, then calls out a loud “Amen!” and smiles and thanks the performers, raising her hand to acknowledge cheers from the crowds lining the street on both sides.

They’re cheering me too, chanting my name: the common people, packed body to body behind the line of guards on each side. The smell of them, even in the cold November air, is like animals being herded to market.

We press on, over the bridge. In front of us, the City sprawls: a mass of roofs and smoking chimney-stacks, bustling shopping streets, grand houses with their gardens stretching down to the river, landing stages, busy wharves, and a forest of church spires pointing to the sky. I think, with a sudden surge of pride, that no city in Spain could possibly be so glorious.

In Gracechurch Street we stop again, the procession bunched up behind us – the horses stamping and farting. This street is packed even more tightly with people than the bridge. Faces, faces, everywhere you turn – squeezing out of overhanging upper-floor windows, gazing down from rooftops, eyes wide at the sight of costly fabrics, gleaming jewels and royalty in the flesh.

Here, another pageant. This one’s mounted on a mock castle, complete with turrets and covered in my father’s emblems: golden crowns and portcullises, dragons, greyhounds and red and white roses. Two knights look out from upper doorways marked ‘Policy’ and ‘Nobility’. Beside them there’s a bishop labelled ‘Virtue’, at whom someone in the crowd seems to be aiming small missiles that look like
bits of bread.

As the speeches begin there’s a loud crack to our right, as a piece of guttering gives way under a man’s weight. For one delicious moment he’s dangling in mid-air, apparently in danger of peeling the entire length of pipe from the wall – but then, after a struggle, his friends bundle him in through a window, to a loud cheer from the crowd.

Catherine and I applaud – and are cheered for that, too. This is marvellous enough; what then must it feel like, I wonder, to be cheered by the people as their king?

And then we’re off again, the procession jingling, winking in the watery sun, as it snakes slowly along the packed streets.

In Cheapside – an impressive street of goldsmiths’ shops – we’re faced with God the Father, plus warbling angels and a variety of wise men and prophets.

“You need to understand,” I say, “they’ve dressed up the person playing God to look like my father.”

“It’s a fair likeness,” says Catherine. “Why so many more guards here?”

I look about. Yeomen of the Guard, plus huge numbers of liveried servants are ranged in every window, on every rooftop, and are standing several deep in the street around us. This amount of security can only mean one thing.

“Ah,” I say. “I think God himself is watching.”

Catherine follows my gaze. There’s a merchant’s house to our right; behind one of its diamond-paned windows I think I’ve glimpsed a face. My father no doubt planned this as a secret visit, but Catherine bows her head in that direction anyway. I do the same.

She looks back to the pageant. Another man dressed as a bishop is already several verses into his speech. “Any help you can give me with this one?”

I listen. “Um… To save us all from our sins, God made a marriage between the divine and the human by sending Christ to live among us… He’s saying the King of Heaven is like an earthly king who prepares a wedding for his son. No prizes for guessing which earthly king.”

“So – your father is God and your brother is Christ. Who, then, are you?” She looks at me, eyes twinkling. “The Holy Ghost?”

I smile, though not especially happily. “I am no one in particular.”

“Oh, I can’t believe that,” says Catherine. “And the people clearly don’t think so. Listen to them.”

The chanting has begun again. Some people are calling my name, some hers, some shouting out “God save the King!” and flinging their caps into the air, causing occasional struggles in the crush when the wrong people catch them.

As we move on, I say, “No, it’s true. I’m just a fill-in, for when my brother isn’t here. You’ll meet him in a minute – when we get to St Paul’s.”

“What’s he like?”

“Oh…” I’m suddenly at a loss. “Very accomplished. You’ll find he’s, um, taller – well, not taller than me, actually. Older, though – yes. And more, er…”

Catherine smiles. “I’m teasing you. We’ve met already. He and your father came and inspected me on my way up from Plymouth.”

“Ah, I see.” To check for warts, I want to say. But don’t.

We ride into St Paul’s churchyard. The bells are ringing and the booming sound echoes across the open space of the yard, rebounding off the buildings. Near the west front of the cathedral is the Bishop’s Palace, and before that a crowd of courtiers stands waiting. Catherine leans towards me to speak – it’s hard to hear anything over the bells. “The King
wanted to reassure himself that I wasn’t ugly, I think.”

“Yes,” I say automatically. “I mean,
no
.”

She laughs. “In my country, you know, a bride never shows herself to the groom or his family before the wedding day. But your father insisted. He said he would storm into my bedchamber if necessary.”

“Honestly?”

As the procession halts, she smiles, biting her lip, and nods. “He suspected, I’m sure, that I had something to hide.”

Wooden blocks of steps are brought so that we can dismount. I’m first to the ground. Catherine takes my outstretched hand as she steps down from her mule.

“
He
might have been suspicious,” I say, “but
I
was hopeful. That you would be ugly.”

Her eyes widen. “I could take offence at that! Why did you think so? Because all Spaniards
must
be ugly? I’ve been told the English think badly of foreigners.”

I escort her towards the palace. Walking side by side, I realise quite how small she is; she’s six years older than me, but still we’re eye to eye. I say, “No. It’s just that it would give me some small happiness if my elder brother didn’t have
all
the best things. There, now you know how ungenerous I am.”

Catherine laughs again. “I’ll be glad to have you as my brother when I’m married! I had sisters at home – and I used to have a brother too. We always talked to one another –
really
talked – and laughed and joked and argued. You’re the first English person I’ve had a proper conversation with. Everyone else has been really polite, but so… formal. Some people in Spain say the English are cold, and I was starting to believe it.”

We’re almost at the entrance to the Bishop’s Palace. The courtiers stand aside as we approach – to reveal my brother, waiting for us in a blue silk doublet and a matching cloak,
slung across one shoulder and fastened with a huge diamond.

“Most beloved Princess Catherine, you are heartily welcome,” he says. He bows and offers her his hand, taking no notice of me whatsoever. About that, I couldn’t care less. But I think:
There’s cold for you, my lady, right there in the blue cloak
.

Two days later, in the ancient cathedral of
St Paul’s, dressed in matching shimmering white satin, my brother and Princess Catherine of Aragon are married.

The celebrations last a week.

On the fourth day, after the dinner boards have been cleared away – along with creations the cooks have laboured over for hours, only for them to be picked at, half-eaten and left – we head outside to the tiltyard.

I am dressed in cloth of gold, and feeling uncomfortable, as if my clothes don’t fit – except they do; or as if I have an itch – except I don’t. Not on the outside, anyway. Maybe in my head.

The tiltyard – a vast open arena outside Westminster Hall – is chilly and damp. I draw my outer gown tightly about me as I make my way, with the rest of the royal party, to the canopied grandstand. The remainder of the Court and the City dignitaries sit in separate uncovered stands, while the lower orders are crammed behind barriers at the far end
of the yard. Torches flare; it’s only one o’clock, but it seems barely light.

I’m directed, with my friends, to the edge of the royal enclosure. It suits me fine. In the centre, next to my parents, the bride and groom sit stiffly side by side, Arthur managing to look smug and awkward at the same time. He doesn’t seem to be having much success in thinking of things to say to his wife.

Then trumpets sound, the great doors of Westminster Hall open and out into the cold air trundles a mountain on wheels. It’s pulled by a red dragon. On top of the mountain sits a (real) maiden with a (not-so-real) unicorn, lying with its head in her lap.

The mountain performs a tour of the arena, circling the wooden barrier that runs down the middle, to cheering that drowns out the efforts of the trumpeters. At last, it comes to a halt in front of our royal stand. Then a door in one craggy side opens, and out rides a knight on a black horse, his saddlecloth decorated with castle-shaped pieces of solid gold.

“How do they do that?” Beside me, Harry Guildford’s eyes have narrowed as he stares at the pageant-car. “How do they make the mountain? How do they stop the horse from going crazy and trying to smash its way out? And what on earth’s inside that dragon?”

“Count the legs,” says Francis Bryan on my other side. “It’s four men. And I bet there’s swearing in there fit to shock a ferryman.”

Never mind the dragon, my attention’s on the knight, who is busy bowing to my father. It’s the first tournament I’ve seen in ages, and I’m gawping at the armour – in this case a perfectly fitted suit that’s gilded all over and topped with a plume of ostrich feathers sprouting from the helmet.

“What will Brandon’s pageant-car look like?” I ask the boys around me. Today Charles Brandon will ride in his first public tournament.

“Can’t remember,” says Bryan. “What’s he being? A hermit in a hill? A pig in a poke?”

Compton leans towards me. “He’s in a tent made to look like a chapel, sir, accompanied by a wise man and two lions.”

And just as he says this, the chapel (on wheels) emerges into view through the doors of the hall. We cheer ourselves hoarse. Brandon – whom lots of the Court ladies seem to find very charming, God alone knows why – emerges from the chapel with his helmet under his arm, grinning like a maniac. As he rides past the courtiers’ stand a lady’s handkerchief is thrown, and flutters down onto the sandy floor.

Brandon sends a page to collect it. When it’s handed up to him in his saddle he makes a great show of kissing it and then tucks it into the band of silk that decorates the top of his helmet. The crowd whoops and whistles.

More arrivals follow: a knight dressed as a Turk, another in a tent covered with roses, and an unidentified Spaniard, without coat of arms or emblems, whom the heralds haven’t, it seems, been expecting. It must be a member of Catherine’s escort party; out of deference to her the heralds accept him as a competitor and he’s paraded round the tiltyard like everyone else.

More trumpet blasts. More cheering. And then, at last, the jousting starts.

The knights are divided into two teams: the challengers and the defenders. Their task is to take turns to ride at one another, almost head on, separated only by the wooden barrier. Each knight carries a long wooden spear – a lance – with which he aims to hit his opponent. One point is earned for a hit to the body, two points for a hit to the head, four
points if your lance shatters when it strikes.

I’ve forgotten just how exciting jousting is. Two minutes in, and I’m on the edge of my seat. The riders thunder towards each other at breakneck speed. There can be no dodging, no failure of courage, though on any run if something goes wrong one of them might die.

And as I watch I’m thinking:
I could do this
. I want to be down in that yard right now. What must it be like? Like sword combat – only more terrifying, more thrilling? I try to imagine my opponent’s lance speeding towards me, its metal tip aimed at my head; the sense of terror and excitement only just under control; the joyful sharp simplicity of the world when everything disappears except
this
and
now
.

On Brandon’s first run his opponent – the anonymous Spaniard – thwacks his lance into Brandon’s breastplate. The lance slides and shudders. Brandon is knocked backwards half out of his saddle, and we all yell in alarm – but he clings on and manages to grab the reins again. And when he reaches the far end of the yard, he turns his horse straightaway, eager for the next run.

He sets off, his supporters starting a rising roll of cheers that crescendos until the moment of impact. This time the Spaniard aims high. The lance hits Brandon’s helmet; his head jolts back sickeningly fast. The next moment he’s falling, head over heels over the back of the horse, pulling and twisting the reins as he goes, and I’m on my feet, clutching Bryan in alarm. The horse rears, then tumbles, its round belly rolling in the sand, hooves flailing. By sheer luck, Brandon has fallen free of his mount.

A team of grooms rushes forward to help both Brandon and the horse, while a couple of spectators vault the barriers and run to collect gold trinkets that have fallen off Brandon’s tabard and the horse’s trappers. The horse has been cut on the
nose by its armour, and is bleeding, but it scrambles up and is led away.

Miraculously, Brandon himself seems unhurt. He pulls off his helmet. He’s flushed, his sweaty hair is sticking up at angles, and he looks delighted as a puppy, as if he’s just had a gentle gallop round the park on a sunny afternoon. After bowing to my father, he takes the lady’s handkerchief from his helmet with a flourish and mops his brow, to cheers from the crowd. It looks as if he would happily do it all again.

Meanwhile the anonymous Spaniard is parading his horse round the arena, to loud appreciation from the Spanish party and some of the more sporting Londoners. He holds his lance aloft in triumph. His helmet is still on, his face concealed.

As I sit down, I feel suddenly so jealous of them both – of Brandon and the Spaniard – that it is like a physical pain.

And then something begins to stir in the back of my mind. A thought – a memory from old storybooks I’ve read. An adored hero… a mysterious stranger… The tales of King Arthur and his Court are full of knights fighting anonymously, their identities hidden behind their visors.

An anonymous knight is a
nobody
, of sorts – a heroic nobody. And a nobody is what my father wants me to be.

As the next two competitors come forward, my eyes are on the tiltyard, but my mind is lost in a waking dream.

I see myself arriving at the Court of a new King Arthur: my brother. Dressed in coal-black armour, without crest or emblems to identify me, I refuse to give my name or show my face. Instead I challenge the bravest knights of the Court to a joust. They accept
.

The tournament is long and arduous. Many lances are shattered, many riders unseated, but I triumph over all, my skill and courage amazing both King and Court. The crowds shout for me, and King Arthur’s queen – the lovely Catherine – bids me wear her glove on my helmet, as a mark of her favour
.

When the tournament is over, the King begs me to stay for a banquet, where he promises I will be treated as his most honoured guest. I thank him graciously but decline the offer, then turn my horse and ride away into the dusk. The whole Court stands at the windows of the palace to watch me go, until I am lost in the shadows of—

“What about you, Hal?” says Bryan next to me.

“What?” I blink at him.

“Armour – I was talking about the armour. I said I’d have the blood-red – look, that suit there. Given the choice.”

“I’d take the gold,” says Guildford.

“Black,” I say. “Definitely the black.”

At the end of the tournament I go looking for Brandon. Compton directs me to a chamber near the Lesser Hall. Walking in, I find it filled with several of the more junior jousters, some being dressed or washed, others sprawled out, resting, examining injuries, or flicking cloths at their pageboys to get them to hurry with their tasks.

As awareness of my presence ripples through the room, there’s a scramble to get up and bow. But I signal that it’s Brandon I want to speak to – there’s no need for everyone to stand to attention. He comes over, and I say, “Teach me to joust.”

He grins. “You’re rather young for it, Hal.”

“Did I ask for your
opinion
?” I’m not the king’s son for nothing: I know how to use a commanding tone.

A look of surprise flits across Brandon’s face. The next moment he’s a picture of perfect respect. “No, sir.” He bows to me formally. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

Anonymous knight – winner of tournaments – mysterious warrior, face hidden behind my black visor. This way I can be the nobody my father wants
and
the hero of my dreams. For the next few months it’s my secret plan for survival.