Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1

by Philippa Gregory

  I took her soft hanks of hair in my hand and plaited them.

  ‘Ow,’ she complained. ‘You’re pulling.’

  ‘Well, you’re nagging,’ I said. ‘Leave me to do it my way, Anne. I’ve not done so badly so far.’

  ‘Oh that.’ She shrugged her white shoulders and smiled at her reflection in the mirror. ‘Anyone can attract a man. The trick is to keep him.’

  The knock at the door startled us both. Anne’s dark eyes flew to the mirror, to my reflected image looking blankly back at her.

  ‘Not the king?’

  I was already opening the door.

  George was standing there, in the red suede doublet he had worn at dinner, the white fine linen shirt gleaming through the slashings, the red cap embroidered with pearls on his dark head.

  ‘Vivat! Vivat Marianne!’ He came quickly in and closed the door behind him. ‘He asked me to invite you to take a glass of wine with him. I’m to apologise for the lateness of the hour, the Venetian ambassador has only just left. They talked of nothing but war with France and now he is filled with passion for England, Henry and St George. I’m to assure you that you’re free to make your choice. You can take a glass of wine and come back to your own bed. You’re to be your own mistress.’

  ‘Any offer?’ Anne asked.

  George raised a supercilious eyebrow. ‘Show a little elegance,’ he reprimanded her. ‘He’s not buying her outright. He’s inviting her for a glass of wine. We’ll fix the price later on.’

  I put my hand to my head. ‘My hood!’ I exclaimed. ‘Anne, quick! Plait up my hair.’

  She shook her head. ‘Go as you are,’ she said. ‘With your hair down around your shoulders. You look like a virgin on your wedding day. I’m right, aren’t I, George? That’s what he wants.’

  He nodded. ‘She’s lovely like that. Loosen her bodice a bit.’

  ‘She’s supposed to be a lady.’

  ‘Just a bit,’ he suggested. ‘A man likes a glimpse of what he’s buying.’

  Anne untied the laces at the back of my bodice until the boned stomacher was a little looser. She tugged it down at the waist so it sat lower and more invitingly. George nodded. ‘Perfect.’

  She stepped back and looked at me as critically as my father had looked at the mare he had sent to the stallion. ‘Anything else?’

  George shook his head.

  ‘She’d better wash,’ Anne suddenly decided. ‘Under her arms and her cunny at least.’

  I would have appealed to George. But he was nodding, as intent as a farmer. ‘Yes, you should. He has a horror of anything rank.’

  ‘Go on.’ Anne gestured to the jug and ewer.

  ‘You two go out,’ I said.

  George turned for the door. ‘We’ll wait outside.’

  ‘And your bum,’ Anne said as he closed the door. ‘Don’t skimp on it, Mary. You’ve got to be clean all over.’

  The closing door cut off my response which was not that of a young lady. I washed myself briskly in cold water and rubbed myself dry. I took some of Anne’s flower water and patted it on my neck and hair and on the tops of my legs. Then I opened the door.

  ‘Are you clean?’ Anne asked sharply.

  I nodded.

  She looked at me anxiously. ‘Go on then. And you can resist for a bit, you know. Show a little doubt. Don’t just fall into his arms.’

  I turned my face away from her. She seemed to me quite unbearably crass about the whole matter.

  ‘The girl can have a bit of pleasure,’ George said gently.

  Anne rounded on him. ‘Not in his bed,’ she said sharply. ‘She’s not there for her pleasure but for his.’

  I didn’t even hear her. All I could hear was the thud of my heart pounding in my ears and my knowledge that he had sent for me, that I would be with him soon.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to George. ‘Let’s go.’

  Anne turned to go back into the room. ‘I’ll wait up for you,’ she said.

  I hesitated. ‘I might not come back tonight.’

  She nodded. ‘I hope you don’t. But I’ll wait up for you anyway. I’ll sit by the fire and watch the dawn come in.’

  I thought for a moment about her keeping a vigil for me in her spinster bedroom while I was snug and loved in the King of England’s bed. ‘My God, you must wish it was you,’ I said with sudden acute delight.

  She did not flinch from it. ‘Of course. He is the king.’

  ‘And he wants me,’ I said, hammering the point home.

  George bowed and offered me his arm and led me down the narrow stairs to the lobby before the great hall. We went through it like a pair of interlinked ghosts. No-one saw us pass. There were a couple of the scullions sleeping in the ashes of the fire and half a dozen men dozing head-down on tables around the room.

  We went past the top table and through the doors where the king’s private rooms began. There was a set of broad stairs richly hung with a beautiful tapestry, the colours drained from the bright silks by the moonlight. There were two men at arms before the presence chamber and they stood aside to let me pass when they saw me with my golden hair let down and the confident smile on my face.

  The presence chamber behind the double doors was a surprise to me. I had only ever seen it crowded with people. This was where everyone came to have sight of the king. Petitioners would bribe senior members of the court to allow them to stand here in case the king noticed them and asked them how they did, and what they wanted of him. I had never seen this big vaulted room other than packed with people in their most handsome clothes, desperate for the king’s attention. Now it was silent, shadowy. George pressed his hand on my cold fingertips.

  Ahead of us were the doors to the king’s private chambers. Two men at arms stood with pikes crossed. ‘His Majesty commands our presence,’ George said briefly.

  There was a short chime as the pikes clashed, the two men presented arms, bowed, and swung the double doors open.

  The king was seated before the fire, wrapped in a warm robe of velvet trimmed with fur. As he heard the door open he leaped to his feet.

  I dropped into a deep curtsey. ‘You sent for me, Majesty.’

  He could not take his eyes from my face. ‘I did. And I thank you for coming. I wanted to see … I wanted to talk … I wanted to take a little …’ He broke off finally. ‘I wanted you.’

  I stepped a little closer. He would smell Anne’s perfume from that distance, I thought. I tossed my head and felt the weight of my hair shift. I saw his eyes go from my face to my hair and back again. Behind me, I heard the door closing as George went out without a word. Henry did not even see him go.

  ‘I am honoured, Your Majesty,’ I murmured.

  He shook his head, not in impatience, but as the gesture of a man who cannot waste time on play. ‘I want you,’ he said again, flatly, as if that were all that a woman would need to know. ‘I want you, Mary Boleyn.’

  I took a small step closer to him. I leaned towards him. I felt the warmth of his breath and then the touch of his lips on my hair. I did not move forward or back.

  ‘Mary,’ he whispered and his voice was choked with his desire.

  ‘Your Majesty?’

  ‘Please call me Henry. I want to hear my name on your lips.’

  ‘Henry.’

  ‘D’you want me?’ he whispered. ‘I mean as a man? If I were a farmer on your father’s estate, would you want me then?’ He put his hand under my chin to lift up my face so that he could look into my eyes. I met his bright blue gaze. Carefully, delicately I put my hand to his face and felt the softness of his curling beard under my palm. At once he closed his eyes at my touch and then turned his face and kissed my hand where it cupped his chin.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, caring not at all that it was nonsense. I could not imagine this man as anything but King of England. He could no more deny being king than I could deny being a Howard. ‘If you were a nobody and I were a nobody I would love you,’ I whispered. ‘If you were a farmer with a field
of hops I would love you. If I were a girl who came to pick the hops would you love me?’

  He drew me closer to him, his hands warm on my stomacher. ‘I would,’ he promised. ‘I would know you anywhere for my true love. Whoever I was and whoever you were, I would know you at once for my true love.’

  His head came down and he kissed me gently at first and then harder, the touch of his lips very warm. Then he led me by the hand towards the canopied bed and lay me down on it and buried his face in the swell of my breasts where they showed above the stomacher that Anne had helpfully loosened for him.

  At dawn I raised myself on my elbow and looked out of the leaded panes of the window to where the sky was growing pale and I knew that Anne would be watching for the sun too. Anne would be watching the light slowly filling the sky and knowing that her sister was the king’s mistress and the most important woman in England, second only to the queen. I wondered what she made of that as she sat in the windowseat and listened to the first birds tentatively sounding out their notes. I wondered how she felt, knowing that I was the one the king had chosen, the one who was carrying the ambitions of the family. Knowing that it was me and not her in his bed.

  In truth, I did not have to wonder. She would be feeling that disturbing mixture of emotions that she always summoned from me: admiration and envy, pride and a furious rivalry, a longing to see a beloved sister succeed, and a passionate desire to see a rival fall.

  The king stirred. ‘Are you awake?’ he asked from half-under the covers.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, instantly alert. I wondered if I should offer to leave, but then he emerged head first from the tangle of bedding and his face was smiling.

  ‘Good morrow, sweetheart,’ he said to me. ‘Are you well this morning?’

  I found I was beaming back at him, reflecting his joy. ‘I’m very well.’

  ‘Merry in your heart?’

  ‘Happier than I have ever been in my life before.’

  ‘Then come to me,’ he said, opening his arms, and I slid down the sheets and into the warm musky-scented embrace, his strong thighs pressing against me, his arms cradling my shoulders, his face burrowing into my neck.

  ‘Oh Henry,’ I said foolishly. ‘Oh, my love.’

  ‘Oh I know,’ he said engagingly. ‘Come a little closer.’

  I did not leave him till the sun was fully up and then I was in a hurry to be back in my room before the servants were about.

  Henry himself helped me into my gown, tied the laces at the back of my stomacher, put his own cloak around my shoulders against the chill of the morning. When he opened the door my brother George was lounging in the windowseat. When he saw the king, he rose to his feet and bowed, cap in hand, and when he saw me behind the king he gave me a sweet smile.

  ‘See Mistress Carey back to her room,’ the king said. ‘And then send the groom of the bedchamber in, would you, George? I want to be up early this morning.’

  George bowed again and offered me his arm.

  ‘And come with me to hear Mass,’ the king said at the door. ‘You can come with me to my private chapel today, George.’

  ‘I thank you.’ George accepted with nonchalant grace the greatest honour that any courtier could receive. The door to the privy chamber closed as I curtsied and then we went quickly through the audience chamber and through the great hall.

  We were too late to avoid the lowest of the servants, the lads employed to keep the fires burning were dragging great logs into the hall. Other boys were sweeping the floor, and the men at arms who had slept where they had dined were opening their eyes and yawning and cursing the strength of the wine.

  I put the hood of the king’s cloak up over my dishevelled hair and we went quickly and quietly through the great hall and up the staircase to the queen’s apartments.

  Anne opened the door at George’s knock and drew us in. She was white-faced with lack of sleep, her eyes red. I took in the delicious sight of my sister on the rack of jealousy.

  ‘Well?’ she asked sharply.

  I glanced at the smooth counterpane on the bed. ‘You didn’t sleep.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘And I hope you slept but little.’

  I turned away from her bawdiness.

  ‘Come now,’ George said to me. ‘We only want to know that all is well with you, Mary. And Father will have to know and Mother and Uncle Howard. You’d better get used to talking about it. It’s not a private matter.’

  ‘It’s the most private matter in the world.’

  ‘Not for you,’ Anne said coldly. ‘So stop looking like a milkmaid in springtime. Did he have you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said shortly.

  ‘More than once?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Praise God!’ George said. ‘She’s done it. And I have to go. He asked me to hear Mass with him.’ He crossed the room and caught me up into a hard hug. ‘Well done. We’ll talk later. I have to go now.’

  He banged the door indiscreetly as he left and Anne made a little tutting noise and then turned to the chest which held our clothes.

  ‘You’d better wear your cream gown,’ she said. ‘No need to look the whore. I’ll get you some hot water. You’ll have to bathe.’ She raised her hand to my protests. ‘Yes, you will. So don’t argue. And wash your hair. You have to be spotless, Mary. Don’t be such a lazy slut. And get out of that gown and hurry, we have to go to Mass with the queen in less than an hour.’

  I obeyed her, as I always did. ‘But are you happy for me?’ I asked as I struggled out of the stomacher and petticoat.

  I saw her face in the mirror, the leap of jealousy veiled by the sweep of her eyelashes. ‘I am happy for the family,’ she said. ‘I hardly ever think about you.’

  The king was in his private gallery, overlooking the chapel, hearing matins as we filed past to the queen’s adjoining room. Straining my ears I could just hear the mutter of the clerk putting papers before the king for him to glance at and sign as he watched the priest in the chapel below go through the familiar motions of the Mass. The king always did his business at the same time as hearing the morning service, he followed his father in this tradition, and there were many who thought the work was hallowed. There were others, my uncle among them, who thought that it showed that the king was in a hurry to get the work out of the way and that he only ever gave it half his mind.

  I kneeled on the cushion in the queen’s private room, looking at the ivory gleam of my gown as it shimmered, hinting at the contours of my thighs. I could still feel the warmth of him in the tenderness between my legs, I could still taste him on my lips. Despite the bath which Anne had insisted that I took, I still fancied that I could smell the sweat from his chest on my face and in my hair. When I closed my eyes it was not in prayer, but in a reverie of sensuality.

  The queen was kneeling beside me, her face grave, her head erect under the heavy gable hood. Her gown was open a little at the neck so that she might slide her finger inside and touch the hair shirt that she always wore next to her skin. Her sober face was drawn and tired, her head bowed over her rosary, the old slack skin on her chin and cheeks looking weary and pouched under her tightly closed eyes.

  The Mass went on interminably. I envied Henry the distraction of the state papers. The queen’s attention never wavered, her fingers were never idle on her beads, her eyes were always closed in prayer. Only when the service ended and the priest wiped the chalices in the white cloths and took them away did she give a lingering sigh, as if she had heard something that none of us had ears for. She turned and smiled on all of us, all her ladies, even me.

  ‘And now let us go to break our fast,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Perhaps the king will eat with us.’

  As we filed past his door, I felt myself dawdle, I could not believe that he would let me go by without a word. As if he sensed my desire, my brother George flung open the door at the exact moment that I was lingering and said loudly: ‘A good morning to you, my sister.’

  In the room behind h
im Henry looked up quickly from his work and saw me, framed in the doorway, in the cream gown that Anne had chosen for me, with my cream headdress pulling my rich hair off my young face. He gave a little sigh of desire at the sight of me and I felt my colour rise, and my smile warm my face.

  ‘Good day, sire. And good day to you, my brother,’ I said softly, while my eyes never left Henry’s face.

  Henry rose to his feet and stretched out his hand as if to draw me in. He checked himself with a glance at his clerk.

  ‘I’ll take my breakfast with you,’ he said. ‘Tell the queen I will come along in a few moments. Just as soon as I have finished these … these …’ His vague gesture indicated that he had no idea what the papers were.

  He came across the room, like a dazed trout swimming towards a poacher’s bright lantern. ‘And you, this morning, are you well?’ he said quietly, for my ears only.

  ‘I am.’ I shot a quick, mischievous glance up at his intent face. ‘A little weary.’

  His eyes danced at the admission. ‘Did you not sleep well, sweeting?’

  ‘Hardly at all.’

  ‘Was the bed not to your liking?’

  I stumbled, I was never as skilled as Anne at this sort of word-play. In the end I said nothing but what was simply true. ‘Sire, I liked it very well.’

  ‘Would you sleep there again?’

  In a delicious moment I found the right response. ‘Oh sire. I was hoping I would not sleep there again very soon.’

  He threw back his head and laughed, he snatched up my hand and, turning it over, pressed a kiss into the palm. ‘My lady, you have only to command me,’ he promised. ‘I am your servant in every way.’

  I bowed my head to watch his mouth press my hand, I could not take my eyes from his face. He raised his head and we looked at each other, a long mutual look of desire.

  ‘I should go,’ I said. ‘The queen will wonder where I am.’

  ‘I shall follow you,’ he said. ‘Believe it.’