“Bitches be everywhere,” I promised. “And most of them are bullies, also like your sister.”
“Born and bred,” she agreed. “My earliest memory is of baby Anne ripping up one of my dolls. When I complained, Mother told me I was too old for such things anyway.” She sighed. “And all these years later, it seems I am fated to carry her train for the rest of my life.”
No, you aren’t.
“And her sons will lord it over mine, and so the tiresome acrimony will perpetuate for another generation.”
No.
“If you can do it without drawing attention to yourself, you should keep that on your face at least half an hour. It’ll help with the sting and keep the swelling down.”
“Or,” she replied, pulling the towel away, “I can let everyone see what a vindictive witch my sister is.”
“You think they don’t already know?”
“A good point.” She put the towel back on her cheek with a wet smack. “I wish to be more like you.”
“Uh. What?”
“Above the petty, too focused on the Lord Our Father’s divine will to care about superficial idiocy.”
“Yes, that’s me all right,” I lied. “Also, where did you get that idea? We’ve met twice.”
“Do serving maids not gossip in Merka? Your refusal to don a fine gown for the ceremony is all over the court. How you insisted clothing was as nothing compared to the Lord’s work—”
“That’s not exactly what I insisted.”
“—and that though such things are superficial, you were gracious in your refusal.”
“Well, I was raised to be polite. But so were lots of people.”
“Yes. About that. Your family …?”
“You guys really have that whole ‘tactful pause’ thing down, don’t you?”
“I beg your—”
“Gone,” I said shortly. Dead, five hundred years from now. “When I was younger. I’ve been on my own for a while.”
Mary nodded. “Just so. And you were called to the Lord and go where you will. Where He wills.” She looked at me with a steady dark gaze and added, “You are one of the freest women I know. Some days you know not where you will lay your head, but …”
“I don’t have to carry anyone’s train?” I guessed.
“Just so.”
“The job has its perks.” No one seemed surprised that a holy fool randomly wandered the country with no escort. I assumed they filed that under “the Lord works in mysterious ways” and didn’t give it another thought. Why did that reassure me and piss me off?
Before I could give that any more thought, Mary gasped. Since I hadn’t slapped her other cheek, I assume she could see something I couldn’t, and turned. The attendants/guards had left with the maids when the food was cleared, probably because random nobodies didn’t need to be announced, or maybe for shift change. The result: I had no idea who the man hesitating in the doorway was.
“Hello,” I said, and he bowed.
“He is William Stafford,” Mary hissed in my ear. “One of the king’s soldiers.”
“Why are you whispering? Is it a secret?”
“No, of course not.” And was she …? She was! Mary Boleyn, mistress to kings, mother of bastards, player of her family (and almost everyone else) was blushing. Adorable!
“Mister Stafford,” she said as he approached.
“Lady Carey. And you are the Lady Joan.”
That’s what’s written on my underpants. Except not really. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Stafford.” I knew that name. And as I watched them watch each other, I had it. The unassuming soldier with the Caesar haircut was Mary Boleyn’s next husband.
“And it is nice to meet you, Lady Joan,” which was nice, except he said it to Mary. In fact, after a cursory glance, he wasn’t looking at anything but Mary. And she was looking back.
He was as unassuming in appearance as history had painted him: a distant relative of the Duke of Buckingham (which meant the blood of traitors flowed, however weakly, in his veins), a dark-haired man of medium height, with a square-ish face and hardly any chin, wearing practical clothing in practical shades: brown, mustard, darker brown, all of it topped with a cream-colored ruff, a competent and uncomplicated man. The most daring thing he would ever do would be to marry the queen’s sister without permission.
But that was years from now.
“I have been told I will have the honor of accompanying you to Calais, Lady Carey.”
“Me?” she gasped, her heaving bosom back in play.
“And the king and your sister, of course,” he added, lest we think it was just him and Mary Boleyn on a pleasure trip to England’s last toehold on French territory.
“I know I shall be safe in your company,” she breathed. “And the king and my sister, of course.”
Then they just stared at each other.
Which got awkward after about ten seconds, but only for me.
“Well,” I said. Ahem. “I think I’ll go find the kitchens and chat with the cooks. I have some questions about those sugar postage stamps and the blancmange. Don’t worry. I’ll just follow my nose.” Nope. Nothing. “So I’ll see you la—”
“Mary!”
All three of us jumped, which was a surprise—I didn’t think a tornado would have gotten their attention. A short, slender woman with dark blonde hair, a broad forehead, and wide-set blue eyes was standing in the doorway radiating impatience. She was pale, even her lips, which made her eyes seem bluer and the rest of her almost bloodless by comparison. She hadn’t touched me but I had the impression that she would radiate cold. Which was ridiculous—what, I was coming up with character judgments based on how a stranger said one word?
“What is it, Rochford?” Mary asked, clearly not pleased to be interrupted. Given the dislike in her tone and the casual use of Rochford instead of Lady or a first name, I deduced this was her sister-in-law, Jane Boleyn, a treacherous snake I needed to avoid at all costs.
“Anne wants you.”
“Ha! I have the mark to prove she does not.”
“Tell her so yourself.” Then, lower, “I’m not going back in there.”
“Oh, very well.” She gave Stafford one last long look, hurried to the doorway, and turned back at the last second. “Mr. Stafford!”
He straightened at once, like a hound on point. “Yes, Lady Carey?”
“Will you please see to it that Lady Joan makes it to the ceremony? The king is adamant she be in attendance. And—and I shall be there, too. If anyone were to wonder.”
He bowed low, like he’d been given the Holy Grail to tote around as opposed to a random American intent on grilling a chef about the merits of custard versus syllabub. “I should be pleased to do whatever you command, Lady Carey.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Stafford. Thank you very, very much.” She paused as if she was going to say something else (thank you?), then walked out. Rochford rolled her eyes so hard she was probably glaring at her own brain, then followed.
Stafford let out a breath like he’d been punched. “I—I shall be pleased to take you to the kitchens first, if that is your wish. There is time.”
“Oh, you heard that? I had the impression neither of you was listening to me.”
He laughed, which made his Caesar haircut seem slightly less silly. “I would be a poor soldier if I could not focus on more than one thing at one time.”
“An original multi-tasker, good for you. And thank you. I’d love to visit the kitchens. That probably sounds odd.”
“’Tis not for me to question the whims of angels, or their messengers. Please, this way.”
We walked for a few seconds in companionable silence, which I broke because I am an idiot who talks far more often than is wise. “Lady Carey likes you.” Ugh. Why not get really juvenile and say sh
e LIKES–likes him? “I’m new, but I could tell right away.” Yes, it wasn’t subtle.
“Lady Carey is one of the kindest and most beautiful and charming ladies at court. She is kind to everyone.”
“I didn’t say she was kind to you, I said she liked you.” Liked–liked.
“She has the sweetest nature. She likes everyone.”
“No, she doesn’t,” I insisted, because I knew of at least two people she despised, and, again, I’d only been here a day and a half.
“Even—even if that were true, Lady Carey will be sister-in-law to His Grace the king. She is a Howard by birth and will be royalty by marriage. She could be with anyone. Anyone in the world.” He sounded positively awed just thinking about it.
“Exactly. She could be with anyone—but she likes you.”
He brightened, but his tone stayed even and non-committal. “She has known kings.”
“Well. Yes.” To his credit, it didn’t sound like slut-shaming. More like he thought it was more proof she was out of his league. “Think about that: she’s known kings, and she likes you.” Goofy haircut and all.
“Oh,” was all I got for a response, and then he changed the subject, and then we were meeting the cook and I forgot all about Mary’s future as a Stafford bride because the cook let me taste anything I wanted and I started with the gilded marzipan cake.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Anne Boleyn reminded me of one of the greatest books in literature, specifically, the opening of Gone With The Wind: “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.”
Anne’s nose was too narrow. Her mouth was too wide. Her face was too long. Her skin was too sallow. Her boobs were too small. Her fingers were too long.
But she made it work. And there were the eyes, of course, those justly famous black pools that seemed like a welcoming darkness or a bottomless pit, depending on whether you were Team Anne or Team Catherine, besotted king or exiled queen.
That was something else. I noticed Team Catherine stuck with less flashy clothing and the gable hood, a hat that made them look like they were wearing roofs. (Who? Who designs a tiny roof and plops it on a woman’s head and says, “There! Exactly what I was going for.”)
Team Ann was flashier, brighter, and preferred the hood shaped like a half moon. Still annoying but slightly less cumbersome. Anne wasn’t conventionally gorgeous, but she was sexy. Even I, straight as a ruler per the Kinsey scale, could feel it.
As for those “six fingers, large wen” rumors (what was a wen? a mole? a skin tag? benign tumor? whaaaat?), they were, in a word, nonsense. She couldn’t hide a wen/birthmark/third nipple on her neck in any of the gowns I’d seen her wear. Everyone could see her throat was long and flawless. And if memory served (my mom would know for sure), the people who described her as having such “deformities” had never met her.
“He has to give her status,” Mary whispered as Anne was escorted to Henry by the Garter King-at-Arms. “He cannot crown a nobody.”
“At least you’re not stuck with her train,” I murmured, and she smirked. (That honor had gone to the Duke of Norfolk’s daughter, another Mary, and a couple of random countesses.)
As for the Duke of Grump, he was front-and-center by Henry’s side, with the Duke of Suffolk on Henry’s left. They both had identical expressions of I can’t believe this is happening, which went nicely with everyone else’s. It was a packed house, and stifling, and I was very aware of the fact that antiperspirant had yet to be invented.
Anne was serene, though, and why not? She was a gold medal social climber who made Cinderella look like a hack. Her black hair flowed past her shoulders, a stunning contrast to her red velvet mantle, and she wore so many jewels she glittered. Henry, who had been fidgeting during Anne’s “look ye upon me and despair” glide, all but sprang forward and plopped a gold coronet on her small bent head, and followed it with still more furs, until she was more ermine than Marquis. The room was hushed and you could feel the weight of it all, the import of what was happening right in front of us: the dress rehearsal for her inevitable coronation. Anne ascendant was a freight train: you could hop on or not but either way, she was getting to her destination, and if you got run over, that was your own fault.
Then the bishop—Gardiner, if I had to guess—read aloud the patent that transformed her from random courtier to a peer(ess) of the realm.
And then, cake!
Chapter Forty
But first another audience.
“Say it.”
“Congratulations, former-future Marquis de Pembroke.”
A short laugh that was almost a bark. “You are impossible.”
“And you are a peer, and soon to be queen. So there’s that.”
“Just so.” She nodded, smiling. “But do not think I will not box your ears for insolence.”
“And don’t think I won’t smack you back.” She snorted, doubtless assuming I was joking, how adorable. Smacking back in self-defense fell under the fool’s prerogative, right? And what was involved with boxing ears? Was it like when you clapped your palms over someone’s ears and they got disoriented, or just grabbing a random earlobe and yanking? I had no idea.
We were in Anne’s presence chamber, where she’d retreated to rest or plot or whatever she was up to when she wasn’t dragging out my time travel to-do list. She’d discarded her attendants, a fawning Henry, Mary Boleyn, and the ermine. (I could see why—the mantle was heavy and it smelled, um, old.)
“Your stubborn nonsense aside—”
“Hello, pot. Behold, for I am kettle.”
“—I am grateful for your attendance today. It means much to me. And the king,” she added as an afterthought.
“You’ll recall I didn’t have much choice.” Then I realized the import of her words. “Is that why you both insisted I stay? Do you think my presence in your presence means God’s on board with what you’re doing?”
“God is—what?”
“That God sanctions this?”
“How else would I interpret it?”
Wow, the ego. She and Henry were made for each other.
“Your angels whisper our future,” she pointed out. “You knew when the cardinal would die. You went to Catherine and dissuaded her from bringing war. You told me I would be queen. Of course God countenances my upcoming marriage. We have always known this. But now, everyone who saw me enter the king’s presence as a knight’s daughter and leave as a Marquess knows as well. I have to be safe.”
“Look, I don’t—what?” She’d practically whispered the last part, and I was so busy getting annoyed I’d almost missed it.
She just looked at me. “What happens when a Tudor wants something?”
“Wh—oh.”
Because that’s how obtuse I am. Because until that moment I hadn’t realized a stark truth: the whole time I was telling Henry the Duke of Suffolk’s story, I was also telling Anne Boleyn’s story. Anne wasn’t driving this slow car crash, she was a passenger.
“They get their way,” I replied. “One way or another.”
“Just so. And the king is …”
“Intractable and capricious?”
She sniffed. “You have been listening to my sister.”
“You shouldn’t have hit her.”
“And she shouldn’t be an idiot. But alas, we do not reside in a perfect world.” And then, mimicking: “So there’s that.”
“What is it with Boleyns and accents?” They were the Rich Littles of TudorTime! Then I laughed, because everything was strange and slightly funny. She joined me, and we both pretended a lone tear hadn’t tracked down her face to be impatiently dashed away.
After that, I liked her more than I felt sorry for her, when before it had been the other way around. I couldn’t even tell you why, really. She was still a v
indictive bully who wouldn’t hesitate to stomp anyone in her way. Maybe I had a soft spot for self-aware asshats?
I clumsily changed the subject to satisfy my curiosity and give her a few seconds to compose herself, and asked to see the Letter Patent proclaiming Anne a peer. In my time, it had long crumbled into dust (or, if it existed, I had no idea where) but today the ink was practically wet. Not for the first time, I thought how much my mother would adore this.
She indulged me, but the first sentence (“Creacion of lady Anne, doughter to therle of Wilteshier …”) was almost enough to trigger a migraine: difficult to read, so many curliqued letters, and argh, no universal standardized spelling! They didn’t even have dictionaries yet. So if one person wrote “creation” and another wrote “creacion”, they were both right. Which was wrong.
“Shall we command your return for my trip to Calais?”
“I don’t think it works like that.” A lie: I was positive it didn’t. “And who is ‘we’? Are you doing the Royal We thing already?”
She made an impatient gesture. “I need the practice, don’t you think? Will you come? Even if you have no warnings to divulge? I understand you have to ensure, ah, her—your companion’s safety …”
“Her name is Amy,” I sniffed, and hopefully she didn’t notice the short pause while I frantically (Amanda? Abigail? Ava?) tried to remember.
“Yes, yes.” She waved Amy away with long-fingered hands. “Do you think your angels will send you back to us in time for Calais?”
“I have no idea,” I replied, relishing the rare chance to tell a Tudor the truth.
“It makes no difference.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“First this, then Calais to meet Francis as a near equal,” Anne said with relish—you could practically see her scratching off her Road To Queenship list. “Then coronation. Then consummation. Then a prince.”
“Yes, well, it sounds like you’ve got it all fig—then consummation?”
She tossed her head. “Oh, tiresome. Don’t tell me you’re one of those unimaginative scandal mongers who whisper the king and I have been lovers for years.”
A Contemporary Asshat at the Court of Henry VIII Page 17