The Last Boleyn

by Karen Harper

  Southwark was a terrible part of town and she had never seen it so close, for usually traveling parties of noblemen skirted far around its worst haunts. The dingy bawdy houses and taverns which sailors of the merchant vessels and king’s fleet visited were crammed together. No doubt the sweat ate its gluttonous fill here, for people were so packed in that but a few dead would mean destruction for all. Bloody colored crosses stained the dirty wooden doorways here and there. It was like a ghost town with only a few stragglers or faces peering curiously from a second- or third-storey window. Ordinarily, there would be a vast bustling swell of traffic into the city on this highway to the south, but there was almost none. They rode on at a steady clip and their horses’ hoofs echoed off the nearly abandoned streets.

  Soon, but not too soon, the city was behind them, hovering above the fields with the hazy sun on it like some giant pall. The gardens and apple and peach orchards of Kent stretched ahead of them. Mary took deep, free breaths now, for she had tried to breathe shallowly with her hand over her mouth in the reaches of the city. Let him smirk at her if he thought she was foolish.

  “I am not laughing at you, Mary. I was only thinking you make the best damned looking boy I have ever seen and, unlike some of His Grace’s fine courtiers, I do not usually find young boys at all entrancing.”

  She could not help smiling back at him. He had not spoken since they had left the barge and his voice was somehow comforting. “Then I see no need of your spending a day and night with a boy at Banstead,” she threw at him. He raised one rakish eyebrow but turned his face to the road again.

  As they got farther out, they passed occasional drover’s carts, farm wains, or painted chars, and Mary relaxed as the scene became more normal. Mother and Semmonet would be pleased to see her despite her tragic news. And little Catherine would squeal and throw herself into her mother’s arms as she always did, even when they had been parted but a little while.

  They were nearly to Croydon before their hard taskmaster let them dismount under huge oaks along a stream. “I would love to lie here on the bank and sleep,” Mary said wistfully, stretching her cramped muscles. Her thighs ached terribly and the sword was always in her way. She had never ridden so far astride before. It must take some getting used to and she could tell poor Nancy was suffering as she moved her legs awkwardly and leaned wearily against the trunk of a massive oak.

  “Sore, sweet?” Staff asked as he offered her another swig from their wine canteen.

  “Not so bad that I shall not make it clear to Hever today, my lord,” she returned tartly. The wine was warm but good on a dust-caked throat.

  “If you tried to make it clear to Hever today, lass, you would not walk for a week. As it is, you will be most comfortable resting on your back and not walking about somewhere.”

  She turned her head to give him a pointed stare at his gibe, but he was looking away straight-faced and evidently meant nothing by it.

  “I am thinking of keeping Nancy and Stephen in Banstead, too. The lad would make it well enough to Edenbridge by night but not the girl.” He rose, evidently not expecting her to have any part of the decision about where her servants stayed or went. It irked her, but she let him help her mount. It would help if Nancy were about if she were forced to stay at Banstead the night with him. That way she could insist the girl sleep with her.

  Orchards and wheat fields gave way to patches of beech and elm, and Mary began to sense the look of home. Then the single stands of trees became the deep blue-green forests of the Kent she knew, and she relaxed until her eye caught the weather-beaten sign pointing its ragged finger to the west off the Kent Road—to Banstead, it said. Staff reined in his wheezing stallion and the others halted their horses around him in a tight circle.

  “How do you feel, Mistress Nancy?” he inquired jauntily as though they were out for an afternoon’s ride at Greenwich.

  “Tired, my lord, and a bit sore. I shall make it, though.”

  “Good lass. But since the hour is probably on three, I suggest you and Stephen ride with us to spend the night at Banstead and set out for Hever early on the morrow. Lady Carey and I will probably be there sometime in the next day, or the one after.”

  Nancy’s eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. Had she not seen what he was implying before, the simple wench, thought Mary. Well, at least she understands his meaning now and she will be my ally when we arrive at his precious inn. And now he dared to hint that they would stay more than one day as if he thought she would run off with him when her lord husband was dead only five days!

  “Yes, milord,” the girl said. Staff nodded and they turned their horses’ noses toward Banstead two miles to the west.

  The village was quaint and charming; Mary had to admit that much. No horrible crosses defiled the doors and people wandered about normally at their daily tasks. A Medieval steeple dominated the view, its darkened stone and slender Gothic spires distinct in the sunlight. Across the central town green which stretched at its feet, a few cattle grazed. The village inn stood out plainly among the clusters of other whitewashed and black timbered walls. The inn curled itself in an L-shape around a garden gone to summer riot of late roses and splotches of blues and golds. “The Golden Gull” the frayed sign read with its proud painting of a wheeling sea gull upon a sky of clearest blue.

  She pulled one sore leg over Eden’s lathered neck and let Staff lift her gently to the ground. Her legs nearly buckled on the cobbled courtyard, and they shook as he led her by the elbow to the inn door, which stood silently ajar. The huge common room within was dim. Its trestle table was set for supper, but no fire burned at the hearth and no one scurried to welcome them.

  “Whitman!” Staff deposited her on a bench, and Nancy sank wearily beside her, after nearly tripping over her unwieldy sword. Staff went to the steep stairs which disappeared to the second floor. “Whitman, you old sea dog, come out of hiding and now! You have guests, man, paying guests!”

  A door slammed in the depths of the house, and feet thudded quickly up the steps from beside the fireplace. A great red-bearded face appeared and Mary’s mouth dropped to see how much the man looked like the king—huge and red and ruddy, but much shorter.

  “Stafford, damn yer eyes!” came the explosion and the man pounded Staff on the back rather than bowing as he should have, she thought. “I never thought to see you hove to in these parts. You have not forgotten the coins I owe you for dicin’ with me, is that it? Come to collect yer due?”

  “I thought maybe we could settle that once and for all staying in your fine hostelry a night or two, my man. This is Lady Carey and her servants Stephen and Nancy. Can we find anyone in this deserted place to care for us and our horses?”

  “A course, my lord, and proud of it.” His deep-set eyes took in the tired party and lit to see such a beauty in men’s clothes as Mary’s long locks spilled from under her linen cap.

  “There be fine rooms for all of you upstairs. Will three do, one large and the other two wee ones? There be little business at Banstead, but we do right well for those that come through. A little traveling fair is in town now, but those kind a folk stay out in their own tents. Allow me to show you to yer rooms. My wife, she be back soon after she spends all my money at the fair, eh? We have two little ones, milord. Life is good here since I left the Mary Rose these six years when my sire died an’ left me the Gull.”

  They trooped up the stairs, and it was only then that Mary’s eyes took in the elaborate rigged ropes and ship’s tackle along the walls of the room and stairwell. “The Mary Rose you said, Master Whitman? His Grace’s fine ship the Mary Rose? You have been a sailor in the king’s navy then?”

  Staff laughed aloud at her deduction, but Whitman’s beaming face was serious. “Aye, milady. For fifteen years I be a sailor for this king and his royal father afore him. We protected the channel on the Mary Rose where I met his lordship on some a his voyages to France. And afore that I sailed on the Golden Gull where, if’n I can say it, I had a
much kinder master, eh, milord?”

  “We shall tell the lady the whole story after she has rested, Whit.”

  “I sailed on the Mary Rose once,” Mary said to them as they paused on the tiny landing from which several crooked doors departed. “I sailed on her with Her Grace, the Princess Mary, when she went to France to wed King Louis. It was a very long time ago.”

  Master Whitman regarded her closely. “I was on that voyage, my lady, but I canna’ say I remember you. The princess was the lady for whom the ship was named well enough. You musta’ been a wee child then. But the ship I loved best was the Golden Gull. It stands for freedom you see, an’ not having a cruel and heartless man for a master even if he be handpicked by the king himself, eh?”

  Master Whitman did not bat an eye when Staff put Stephen and Nancy in the two tiny rooms and guided Mary into the larger chamber and, after a few words about supper, firmly closed the door. Stephen accepted it, Nancy looked jittery despite her exhaustion, but Master Whitman only twitched at one corner of his bearded mouth. Mary held her tongue until his footsteps died away outside the door.

  “This is entirely unsuitable to me. I will bed with my girl since you so obviously intend to sleep here.”

  “I think you had better wash your grimy face, sweetheart, and I will get you a bath after we have eaten.”

  She stood uncertain as he peeled off his shirt and dug into the saddle sacks he had deposited on the floor. “A dress would feel better than those breeks, I imagine, though you do them justice well enough.” He looked up sharply. “Where do you think you are going?”

  She paused with her hand on the door latch. “I told you, I am staying with Nancy.”

  “Look, Mary. No more arguing. I am filthy and tired and starved, and so are you.”

  Did he mean those words at face value, or something deeper? He faced her across a narrow space, her brown riding dress dangling from his fingers. His hair fell in disarray over his forehead, and his eyes pierced her as always. Her legs trembled as though she were still cantering in rhythmic motion on Eden’s back.

  “All right,” she said. “I will stay for now. I know you will not force the widow of your dead friend to do anything she does not wish.” She took the dress from him and turned to pour water from the pewter ewer to wash her face and arms.

  The food Master Whitman put before them was simple fare, but they devoured it as if it were the finest feast at court. To Mary’s relief, Staff stayed in the hall talking with the Whitmans and Stephen while Nancy helped her bathe in the bed chamber. She had not expected such manners and restraint from him considering the way his eyes caressed her, and she began to relax somewhat. After all, her servants were nearby. She had been with him all day, and he had not attempted to so much as kiss her. Surely he understood her position and would not make it hard for her.

  As tiny star points began to pierce the darkening sky, she and Staff stood in the cobbled yard of the inn, stretching their weary limbs. Such starry nights always reminded her of Master da Vinci’s velvet painted ceiling. But even the old man had not had the humming of insects under his close-hanging heaven. Staff stood behind her, not touching her, but she felt his presence like a physical caress. His big body threw a long shadow from the lanterns in the hall across the stones and into the rose bushes. Inside, Nancy chattered to Master Whitman’s wife, Margaret, and Stephen dozed by the low fire.

  “Will you walk with me by the pond, Mary?” his voice came quietly in her ear. “There is a little fish pond just behind the inn.”

  Despite the fact that she should have told him no, with the stars burning so brightly and the three-quarter moon just rising over the thatched rooftops, she nodded and walked on ahead. The earth smelled fresh, as though it had just rained, and she felt very much at peace with herself despite her burden of guilt. Hever would do this for her too, this calm inside, this deep calm.

  The little pond was as still as glass and the patches of oval water lily leaves cradling their pure white blossoms looked like stepping stones across its surface. She leaned pensively against the trunk of a trimmed willow tree. Trimmed, no doubt, to keep the view of the pond from the windows of the inn. The willow arched over them like a protective parasol. Fireflies studded the dark grass along the edge of the water.

  “Am I to understand that you mean not to bed with me now that poor Will is gone and you are truly free to do so with a good conscience?” he asked low. The question hung between them and, though she had the proper answer composed in her head, the words would not come. “I will not have you come to detest me the way you did Francois, nor be indifferent as you did with His Grace for his ownership of you. I love you too much despite the way my foolish loins ache for you to be spread beneath me.”

  Her pulse started its thump, thump in the silence. She blessed the dark that he could not see her face.

  “They were kings, father approved, and it just seemed I never had a choice,” she heard herself say finally. “And Will was suddenly my God-given husband.”

  “King-given husband rather,” he put in.

  “But, you see, my father has always pushed or pulled me and if he has not, others have. Now I can make my own decisions.”

  “I approve, Mary, really. I cannot tell you how desperately I have wanted to hear something like that from you. Only, if it means you will choose to do without me, my first impulse would be to kidnap you for myself and never let you free.” He heaved a stone into the pond, and it skipped four times in the moonlight before it sank.

  “Then it would be just like always, with some powerful man making my decisions for me,” she reasoned aloud.

  “I know. I know, damn it!” He turned to her and pulled her gently away from the willow tree. “But the difference, my Mary, is that I love you, and I believe you truly love me. Do you deny it?”

  “No,” she drawled slowly as memories mingled with the griefs she had felt without him at Plashy and the joys she had felt so often with him. “I think I do love you, Staff, but, you see...well, my life has been so confused, and I have been so unhappy with Will and His Grace and so, maybe I...”

  He gave her a rough shake and she stopped speaking. “I asked you once if you loved Will and you said ‘I think I do.’ I told you then that if you think you do, you do not. Do you remember? I do not want you to ‘think’ you love me. I will have you and your love, lass, and you will know it is love or I might just as well marry at the king’s whim or bed some court lady who catches my moment’s fancy.”

  Tears came to her eyes, and the tiny hurt grew that always came when he spoke of bedding others. The grip of his hard hands hurt her arms. She smothered the desire to tell him how much she loved him.

  “I know it has all been a shock to you, Mary, and I trust you to reason it out, if you can keep out of your father’s clutches long enough. But since you are a little muddleheaded now, and since we have always had to seize our moments together as we found them, I will tell you how it is going to be between us while we are here.”

  She stared at his white shirt open at the neck. It seemed to glow in the dark as did the lilies, fireflies and stars.

  “I will not force you to submit in bed if you do not choose to. But you must know a man in love wants more than that from you. We will have this night and tomorrow morning together after Stephen and Nancy set out. And then I will take you safe to Hever as I promised. But until then, we are close, and there can be much healing in that. Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “I thought we could take a row in that little fishing skiff over there,” he said, pulling her toward the bank of the pond. “It will be a gentle ride after four hours in the saddle.”

  She traipsed after him holding his hand. There was a flat-bottomed boat shoved high on the bank. He pushed it backward into the water and held her elbow while she lifted her skirts and stepped in. As soon as she was seated on one of the two rough boards which served for seats, he shoved off and the boat rocked under his weight. He rowed several strok
es and let the oars hang at the side in their wooden locks. The pond was so small that the boat floated nearly in the middle of it, adrift among the lilies on the silent surface. The boat was short and their knees touched, his long legs spread and his feet under her seat on either side of her skirts.

  “It is a beautiful night,” she ventured in the quiet between them. “Drifting at night on a pond—it seems unreal.”

  “Yes, sweetheart.” He sighed. “Can you imagine having all the time in the world here without the king calling?” His voice drifted off as though he regretted his words.

  She remembered how Will had thought His Grace was calling before he died. Did the king dominate all of their lives so much then? She felt suddenly terrified that they would never be free from him.

  “This little boat must be a far cry from the Mary Rose or the Golden Gull for John Whitman,” she said eventually. “Does he miss the sea very much, Staff?”

  “He misses the beauty and freedom of it, but he had a hard master, one he could not tolerate on the Mary Rose, and when he saw his chance for a life he could control, he took it. He may never see the channel or the ocean again and not be so very poorly off for it.”

  He stretched his arms and leaned forward on his knees, and that brought his face much too close.

  “May we pick some lilies?” She turned her head to the side. “They are easy to spot even in the dark.”

  “Yes. They are.” He wheeled the boat about to bring them closer to a small floating carpet of them, and she reached gingerly for a stem.

  “Oh, they are slippery and they go down forever,” she observed as she yanked one free and lifted it, dripping, over the side of the boat. “It does not smell, see?” She extended it toward him, but he did not even try to sniff at it. He only closed his hand around her wet wrist, pulled her farther toward him and leaned over to meet her lips with his. The kiss was tender and warm. She felt balanced in space with him, floating in a trembling moment which she dared not lose. The kiss deepened and his other hand stroked the slant of her cheek and moved softly through her loose hair. When he pulled back, she stared into his eyes lit by moonlight. She thought she saw his lips tremble, but it must have been reflections from the water.