Her brother George interrupted her thoughts. “Father would be pleased to see how the house of Boleyn basks in the royal favor,” he whispered. “A boon for us all, thanks to you, dear sister. I’ll drink to that,” he said, raising his own goblet to be filled by the passing steward.
“Shush, George. You gloat too openly. A king’s favor can be as fickle as his desires. Much good it did our sister. All she got from her alliance with the king was his bastard. Watch about you and learn who your enemies are.”
“Oh Annie, you are shrewder than Mary. She gave it away too freely. The pleasure is more in the chase than the catch. Here, have some of this comfit. It is the same first course as is served at the king’s board. We are favored even over Lord Suffolk, the king’s jousting partner.” He nudged her shoulder and gave a snort of derision. “Look at him. He is stabbing at his dry salet as though it were some peasant’s fare.”
“He’s lucky to be sitting where he is. Henry has been upset with him since—”
“Lady Anne.” The majestic voice from the dais boomed loudly enough for everyone in the hall to hear. The music stropped abruptly. “Is your first course to your liking?”
She stood up, this time dropping a perfunctory curtsy, conscious of many stares boring into her. “It is delicious, Your Majesty. Thank you for inviting us.”
“Then, please, sit back down and eat it. Keep your brother dear company.”
Little gilded cake crowns were being placed before them. “Shall we eat these or wear them?” Henry mocked loudly, and removing the golden coronet he wore, replaced it with the cake.
Beside her, George looked uncertain, then reached for his little cake crown. She put her hand over his and shook her head, then whispered, “The king does not respect those of whom he makes fools.”
Nervous laughter wafted through the hall as some followed suit, but she warned George with her eyes. Henry was playing at farce, leading the more vacuous among them to follow his lead so he could later mock them.
“Troubadour, we would have a love song for the ladies. Play.”
The king waved at the air with the cake, which he had removed from his head. He pretended to take a bite as, grinning, he scanned the boards to see who would follow. He laughed uproariously when half the courtiers chomped down on the cakes that probably by now were crawling with head lice, then he gestured impatiently for his cupbearer to refill his goblet. Though the evening was young, he appeared quite drunk—but she could never be sure. Sometimes he feigned ignorance or inebriation to lull his enemies into carelessness.
She hoped he was too drunk to notice that Sir Thomas More had ignored the whole fiasco while fastidiously scraping the gilding from his crown cake, as though it were some kind of foul poison, and then eating it. The expression on his face showed that he disapproved of the king’s idea of a joke or of gilded cakes or both. Not that she cared to spare Sir Thomas the king’s disapproval, but who knew where such a scene might lead? Verily it would end with her at the center being pulled like a bone between the quarreling dogs under some of the boards.
The lute player began strumming once again and the opening strains of a familiar melody wafted through the hall.
“Do you like love songs, Lady Anne?” Henry’s voice boomed.
Anne stood up again. She was becoming annoyed at all this popping up and down like a court jester in a box. He was doing it on purpose. He was peevish because she was not beside him as he had wanted.
“All ladies like love songs, Your Majesty. I am no different,” she said as gently as she could despite her annoyance, hoping to soften his irritation with her own mild tone.
“Then pray you give your liking or no of this one. Your king has written it and would have it sung for your pleasure.”
“My family is much honored, Your Majesty.” She curtsied again deeply, watching how the silk folds of her yellow kirtle caught the candlelight to best advantage.
She was ever cautious of her movements, taking care that she did all with grace. She was no great beauty by fair, blue-eyed court standards—as her detractors never tired of pointing out—and she knew it. But she knew, too, where her assets lay and how to accent them. She had pushed her small round bosom high above the square ribbon-bound neckline and was aware that he could see it from his seat to best advantage when she curtsied low. Her knees were becoming fatigued with so much dipping, but even from several feet away, she could almost feel the heat from his desire.
The singer began. The plaintive lyrics floated out across the hall. “Alas, my love, you do me wrong to cast me off so discourteously . . .”
Anne felt her face flame. The king was courting her openly, flagrantly, right here in front of his whole court even when she had warned him. Katherine had many supporters in this room, not to count the many staunch Catholics who feared the growing influence of a reform-minded favorite. Like Wolsey. Like Thomas More. She could feel the resentment they dared not show openly burning as resolutely as her own hatred for the cardinal.
She maintained her posture throughout the song, listening to the lyrics, wishing she were back in the French court, laughing with the ladies-in-waiting, or riding across the flower-strewn meadows of Hever Castle, or huddled with her tutor in the Netherlands, debating theology, or, best of all, stealing kisses with sweet Percy outside the queen’s dressing room—wishing she could be anywhere but here being made a spectacle of.
“Greensleeves is my one desire.”
Her face felt as though it would crack from the false smile. Her lower limbs were almost numb. Then came the refrain.
“If you intend thus to disdain, it does the more enrapture me.”
And when I am your queen, what then? She thought of Katherine on her knees for hours in her papist chapel, praying for her husband’s return.
The love song ended and applause broke out among the courtiers and cheers of “Bravo” and “Huzzah.” The king waved the guests to silence.
“Lady Boleyn, what think you of your king’s musical offering?”
She heard a sharp intake of breath at the board closest, imagined the knowing glances and the nudges, the whispering behind hands.
She lifted her head, her chin jutting boldly forward. “Sire, I think you are a man of many exceptional talents. This is but one example.”
He frowned down at her. It was as though the great company disappeared and they two were alone. “God’s blood, woman, what does that mean? Stand up and say to your king directly. Do you like the ditty ‘Greensleeves’ or do you not?” he shouted, enunciating each word carefully, his tone demanding.
Anne raised herself as gracefully as possible, surprised her limbs would even work at all. Gloating expectation laced the silence in the hall. She could almost see the eyes behind her squinting in ecstasy, hear the thoughts that whirled around her. Was this the moment that the king’s mistress would finally get her comeuppance? She did not raise her voice. Let the sycophants strain to hear until their ears fell off.
“Everything Your Majesty does is to my liking. The lyrics fall upon my ear unlike any music I have ever heard or am like to hear again—unless, of course, Your Majesty bestows another gift upon us.”
He scowled at her as though he were trying to make sense of what she said, then broke into a broad grin and laughed loudly. “Cupbearer,” he called. “Fill me up again. My muse has spoken and I must fortify myself.”
Some among those assembled responded with subdued laughter. Others were tentative in their agreement.
During the remainder of the meal, Anne did not have to stand again but fiddled with her food in silence, half listening to George prattle on beside her about his ambitions at court. The room grew overheated. She longed to remove the furred sleeves but knew her enemies would seize upon it. She could almost hear their prattling tongues, their snide laughter. “The king sang a love song to his Lady Green Sleeves whereupon she promptly removed them.”
Henry finally stood up. Once again there was a scraping of chairs and a scram
bling of feet as the courtiers stood. With a loud belch the king left the dais, a groomsman on each side of him to steady him. More and Wolsey followed shortly after but left through separate archways.
Only Thomas Cromwell was left at the king’s board. Anne looked up to find his speculative gaze turned on her. When she did not turn her gaze away, Cromwell raised his glass and smiled.
The king did not call for her for two days. But Secretary Cromwell did.
Kate counted only four in the little shore party gathered on the shingle beach. Five should have been waiting by the signal fire, but in spite of his protests, John Frith, feverish and ill and scarcely able to stand, had been put to bed by Lady Walsh.
“But I have to meet the ship. Sir Humphrey has arranged it. Tyndale will be expecting me,” he said, staggering as he tried to stand. “If I stay here, I shall put you all in danger.”
Lady Walsh had exchanged glances with her husband, who placed his hand on Frith’s shoulder, forcing him back down. “There will be another ship. You cannot go as you are. You’ll never stand the voyage.”
“William would hold us responsible if anything happened to you. We owe it to him,” Lady Walsh had said. “At least, to see that you are cared for until you are strong enough to travel.”
Kate was grateful for the warmth of the fire. The night chill penetrated the finely woven fabric of her full skirt and thin shawl, but she was glad to be in a dress again.
“It’s your choice, of course, my dear, but I see no reason why you shouldn’t act as yourself in your brother’s behalf,” Lady Walsh had said, as she pulled out a simple gown of soft gray wool. “Here. I think you are my daughter’s size,” she’d said, shaking out the skirt and then adding a lace cap and kerchief. “I assure you we will not be the only two in skirts to meet the boat. Local women feed their children by selling the cloth they weave in their cottages, and they are not eager to pay the king’s export tax.”
Kate had accepted the dress with gratitude—as well as the clean rags and belt her kind hostess provided—and joined the little smuggling party with some trepidation. But whatever Lady Walsh had said to Swinford and Lord Walsh, they had treated her as if they had known all along she was John Gough’s sister. She wondered if Frith had also been told that his traveling companion had not been who he thought. Though what did it matter what he thought of her? After tonight she would never see him again anyway. Though pity that was. She’d liked him—a lot. She couldn’t help but wonder how he would have responded to Kate rather than her brother John. Would he have had that same easy manner, that same charming smile that offered ready friendship?
Lord Walsh and Swinford tended the fire as it spewed hissing tendrils of orange against the night sky. In spite of the curling smoke, the air had that swept-clean smell that it carries after a storm. The rain had stopped, and the clouds, though still backlit in the distance every now and then, were breaking up. A full moon floated among them, like the ghost ship whose shadow they could see riding on the moonlit sea.
“Do you think they see us?” Kate asked, trying hard to keep the excitement from her voice, forgetting all about the discomfort of her woman’s curse.
“See us! How could they not, with that great silver orb hanging over us? The customs men can probably see us too.”
“Everything will be all right,” Lord Walsh reassured them. “This captain knows what he’s doing. He’s probably bribed the customs people to look the other way.”
The moon slid behind a cloud, and the sea and the ship vanished. The world narrowed down to just Swinford, Lord and Lady Walsh, and herself within the small circle of firelight. Even the sea disappeared except for its gentle lapping against the pebbled shore.
“Do you think Master Frith will recover?” Kate asked.
Lady Walsh gave her a knowing smile. “I wouldn’t worry, my dear, he’s young. He’ll—”
But before she could finish her reassurance the moon shed its diaphanous caul and reemerged in the open black sky to reveal that the ship had calved. A small boat glided toward them, riding low in the water. As it neared, Kate made out the figures of two men, their arms moving in rhythmic rowing motion.
She was wondering how four people and two of them women could carry such a heavy load as weighed down the boat when behind her she heard a rustle of leaves. A hay wain pulled by four dray horses appeared. The wagon wheels were rag wrapped as were the horses’ feet so that they could move soundlessly through the meadow and onto the beach. The wagon had a driver and three other burly men besides. And surely enough, just as Lady Walsh had promised, there were three women, each with a large bundle on her lap. The driver reined in the horses just outside the circle of firelight. The horses neighed gently, as if to signal their familiarity with the place.
The small boat landed on the beach, its bottom crunching against the pebbles as the two men got out and dragged it onto shore. The inhabitants of the wagon jumped down and began to unload and then reload the wagon, each movement carefully planned and rehearsed for speed and efficiency. Feeling awkward and not knowing exactly where she should fit into such a dance, Kate watched Lady Walsh for some clue. But she was busy talking to the tall man who’d manned the front of the little skiff. Kate could catch only a word here and there but enough to figure he was the captain and Lady Walsh was explaining to him that he would not be picking up his passenger after all.
She saw that the others were forming a line between the wagon and the boat and handing down the cargo to the driver of the wagon who was stacking it. She took her place at the end, closest to the boat where the back rower was handing off the fardels. They began with the lightest bundles on top and by the time they got to the heaviest crates—which Kate supposed held the books, though they were marked as spices—Lady Walsh came to stand opposite her and together they did the work of one strong man.
The captain stood off to the side talking to Lord Walsh. They exchanged papers and Lord Walsh handed him a purse, which the captain weighed with a smile and a toss of his head. Something in his confident manner, in the way the moonlight caught the flash of white teeth in a wide curved smile, treaded on the hem of memory. She was sure she’d seen him before. But no, of course not. Where would she have met a sea captain, and a smuggling sea captain at that?
They were unloading the last one, a small crate marked with the letter B. Kate and Lady Walsh reached for it—from its weight, she guessed it held books too—when the captain strode over and lifted it from their hands to Lord Walsh’s.
“Take care of this one. It’s going to Lady Anne. I was told that you would see that it was personally delivered to Hever Castle.”
“You were told correctly. We’ll not take it to the church at Worle. I’ll take it back to Little Sodbury.”
Behind them the horses snorted their impatience.
“They’re in a hurry to get this night’s work behind them and get back to the stable,” the captain said. “And we’d be wise to do the same. Tell the passenger I’ll be back on the next moon, if he can wait.”
“We’ll be looking forward to seeing you,” Lord Walsh said. “This is dangerous work, you’re doing, Tom, but worthwhile.”
The captain shrugged off the compliment. “I’m compensated well enough. The League sees to that. And as to the danger.” He smiled and touched the short sword at his belt. “I’ve a companion at my side more constant than most.”
His hand rested on it lightly, almost caressingly. Kate gave a little shudder, thinking how easily he might plunge it into a man’s flesh. His cuff flowed over the silver hilt in a white froth of lace, half covering his palm, leaving only the long thin fingers exposed against the metal. The lace cuff! The long thin fingers resting lightly around metal. Suddenly Kate knew where she had seen that lazy smile, that swaggering manner—and a lace cuff, albeit somewhat begrimed, not snowy white as this one. She gave a little gasp of surprise.
He turned his gaze on her. “Mistress, are you well?”
“Thank you, sir, quit
e well,” she said, dropping her gaze, hoping to avoid recognition.
“Have we met?”
“I’m sure not,” she said, moving toward the wagon.
“Hmm,” he said, his face a mask of concentration, then a flash of white teeth and he strode toward her; tucking his finger under Kate’s chin, he lifted it to look her full in the face. It was a bold and disrespectful gesture—but what else could she expect from such a man?
“Mary! No . . . not Mary!” he said. And then he threw back his head and laughed and asked like an old friend who happened upon her at some social affair and not an outlaw—two outlaws—courting danger beneath a smuggler’s moon, “How fares your brother, the printer. Is he well?”
She jerked her head as though she were shrugging off a fly. He dropped his hand. “My name is Kate,” she said. “My brother is out of prison, but he’s no longer a printer. He has retired with his wife and child to the country.”
The captain laughed. There was a hint of mockery in the laughter. “Well then, Kate, he’s smarter than I thought. I feared he had that something in his nature that drives a man to martyrdom as though it were some great prize of honor.”
“And you have not that something in your nature? What is the penalty for smuggling Bibles?”
“The same as for smuggling spices and wine. It’s all contraband to me—contraband and profit.”
“So you will swear whatever oath is put before you if you are caught?”
“I don’t intend to be caught,” he said, striding away from her.
“Don’t let Captain Lasser bluff you, Mistress Gough. He’s not as mercenary as he sounds. I’ve known him to take some risks that no ordinary man would take to serve a more honorable cause than profit,” Lord Walsh said.
The captain slapped the lord on the back as though they were equals. “There is no more honorable cause than profit, my friend,” he said, as he jumped into the small skiff and picked up the oars. The boat rode much higher in the water now, the cloth being much less weighty than the Bibles. He waved and signaled the other rower to push off.
The Heretic’s Wife Page 12