At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) (9 page)

“It must be,” Bess agreed. “Likely he is the one who told His Grace about the tournament. Perhaps he even persuaded King Henry to participate.”

Anne smiled a little at that notion. “No one would have had to talk the king into anything.” This day’s adventure was exactly the sort of reckless activity an impulsive young man would plunge into without a thought for his own safety.

The two great warhorses pawed at the ground, then charged toward each other, hooves thundering on the frozen ground. There was a resounding crash as both lances shattered. Neville’s blow caught Compton square in the middle of the chest, unseating him.

Earlier bouts had ended the same way, but in those the fallen man had always clambered awkwardly to his feet and walked away. This time was different. Will Compton lay ominously still. A hush fell over the crowd.

Anne stared in shock at the motionless form. She felt exactly as she had when she’d been told that her mother was dead: beset by a paralyzing sense of loss and despair. Her gloved fingers instinctively sought her rosary and she murmured a fervent prayer. Beside her, Bess began to weep.

The other competitors milled around their fallen comrade. A physician was summoned. Anne saw the king, mounted and still wearing his concealing visor, speak briefly with Neville, then turn as if to leave. But if His Grace thought to slip away before his disguise was penetrated, he had left it till too late. A spectator, seeing him about to depart, set up a shout.

“God save the king!” he called out, and instantly a hundred voices took up the cry.

King Henry turned back, removed his helmet, and acknowledged the cheering crowd. If he was concerned for his friend, it did not show. He never even glanced Will Compton’s way before he rode off in the direction of the palace, attended by Tom and George and several other gentlemen.

“We need to leave,” Bess whispered, tugging on Anne’s arm with one hand while she dashed moisture from her cheeks with the other.

“He has not stirred.” Anne could not stop staring at the motionless figure. Was he dead? Of all the king’s men, Will Compton had always seemed the most alive, the most vibrant. It would be a sin against nature if he had so carelessly lost his life.

“There is nothing we can do. And, look—there is Dr. Chambre, one of the king’s own physicians. He’ll have Compton on the mend in no time.”

As they walked swiftly away from the tiltyard, Anne tried in vain to still her trembling hands and quell the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Why should she care so much? Will Compton was nothing to her—just another of the king’s boon companions. But she hoped with all her heart that he would not die. She had danced with him, flirted with him, and had grown, she now realized, quite fond of him. Fingering her rosary as she scurried into the palace, Anne went not to her lodgings but to one of the chapels, where she prayed harder than she had in years that Compton would survive. Then, as Bess had, she wept.

“Is there any way I can assist you, my child?”

Anne looked up into the concerned face of one of the king’s chaplains. She recognized him as Thomas Wolsey, the priest who had performed her wedding ceremony. “It is Master Compton, Sir Thomas,” she blurted out. “He has been sore wounded while jousting and I fear he will die.”

“His destiny is in God’s hands,” Wolsey reminded her. “Trust in the Lord to do what is right.”

He offered to pray with her and afterward Anne felt comforted, but hours later, when George returned to their lodgings, she was still deeply upset by what she had witnessed in the tiltyard. She made no pretense of unconcern. “Is he yet living?” she asked the moment her husband walked through the door.

“He’ll mend.”

“He’ll
mend
? Is that all you can tell me? Have you no idea how terrible it was to see him lying so still?”

“His head was cracked open and he was unconscious for hours. At one point, the king’s physicians feared for his life. But then he came back to himself. Demanded a cup of ale to quench his thirst.”

“Has he other injuries?” Anne asked.

“Nothing of note. He broke a number of bones, and his nose. He’ll have to stay behind when the rest of the court moves to Westminster on the morrow.”

Anne frowned at him. Was it her imagination, or had George seemed
pleased
by that? “I do not understand what possessed the king
to compete. How terrible it would have been if His Grace had been the one who was injured.”

“We all knew who he was.” George poured himself a goblet of sack and drank deeply.

“I did not suppose that Neville
meant
to injure Compton,” Anne said with a trace of asperity. “Why do men take such risks?”

“To ready themselves for war. And to impress women.” George gave a self-deprecating laugh.

Belatedly, Anne recalled how well he’d acquitted himself, and that he’d been wearing her favor. “I very nearly won Bess’s silver pomander ball wagering on you,” she admitted.

That seemed to please him.

Anne set herself to charming her husband out of his ill humor. By the time they retired to their bed, they were in harmony again.

L
ady Anne yawned as she approached the royal bedchamber. Had it not been her turn to wait upon the queen, charged with handing her the royal washing water and supervising the chamberers and other lesser ladies who helped Her Grace dress, she’d have stayed in bed for at least another hour herself. It was no consolation at all that George had been obliged to rise even earlier than she to attend King Henry. She was not certain why. George was no groom of the chamber to be at the king’s beck and call. Something special was afoot, she supposed. An early morning hunt or some other male foolishness. Perhaps another snowball fight, since that pastime had become so popular of late.

Her Grace the Queen would have been up at midnight to pray in her oratory, the small closet that adjoined her bedchamber. Now, at third cockcrow, she insisted upon being roused from slumber yet again, this time to hear Mass. Anne would have to accompany her to the chapel, as would all the other ladies on duty this morning. There the priest would drone on, keeping them on their knees far longer than necessary.

That the queen would give birth to a child in a few months and was exhausted with carrying it made no difference to either Catherine of Aragon or her Spanish chaplain. Her Grace insisted upon regular
and frequent devotions. Anne thought the queen spent an excessive amount of time in prayer, and in fasting, too. Those who knew more of such things than she did had tried suggesting that the baby would be the better for a more rested and well-fed mother, but the queen would not listen. Her own mother, as Her Grace continually reminded them, had given birth to children on the battlefield during the holy war she had waged against the infidel.

Anne doubted that Isabella of Castile had been fasting at the time. Pausing at the final doorway before she reached Queen Catherine’s presence, she carefully schooled her features to reveal nothing of her disrespectful thoughts.

The queen’s bedchamber was dimly lit. The curtains were still drawn around Her Grace’s bed. With quiet movements, a Spanish chamberer, Isabel de Vargas, heated washing water over a charcoal brazier while Bess Boleyn inspected the garments that had been sent up by the queen’s wardrobe mistress. The sleeves, skirt, and bodice, together with the elaborate gown that went over the rest, had already been brushed by another of the queen’s chamberers.

Anne nodded to Bess, then glanced toward the bed. Her sister, Elizabeth, was about to part the hangings and gently awaken Her Grace. Elizabeth gave a start when a small door on the far side of the chamber abruptly popped open. A dozen large men, each one dressed in a short cloak and hood of Kendall green and armed with both swords and bows, spilled into the room.

Eyes wide, Anne stared at them. She’d managed to stifle a gasp, but some of the other women shrieked in alarm before they realized who these intruders must be. The door gave onto a passageway that led to the king’s secret lodgings. No one could enter that way except with His Grace’s permission. . . and with His Grace.

The mask covering the king’s face did nothing to hide Henry Tudor’s identity. Ned Neville might be as tall and have similarly broad shoulders, but only one man at court had that shock of bright red-gold hair.

Anne had only seconds to decide how to react. To curtsey would acknowledge that she recognized the king when he plainly thought
himself well disguised as the legendary outlaw, Robin Hood. Acting on instinct, she flung her arms wide instead, as if to prevent him from reaching the queen’s bed.

It was the right choice. The king’s hearty laugh boomed out. Then he moved Anne out of his way by the simple expedient of putting both hands on her waist and lifting her aside. He winked at her as he did so. The cloth visor did nothing to conceal the wicked merriment in his pale blue-gray eyes.

Anne retreated, searching among the “Merry Men” until she found her husband. This, then, was why George had been obliged to wait upon the king so early in the morning. There were a dozen invaders in all—the king as Robin Hood, ten of his companions as the Merry Men, and a Maid Marian dressed in a green gown and yellow wig and wearing a mask that covered all her features, not just her eyes.

“The Maid Marian is a woman,” Anne whispered, too surprised to keep the observation to herself. The role was traditionally played by a man in female clothing.

“It was to have been Compton,” George whispered back, “but he’s still recovering from his injuries.”

The king, meanwhile, had swept back the hangings that enclosed his wife’s bed and discovered her still groggy with sleep. Her Grace gave a startled cry, but a few quiet murmurs calmed her fears.

“Rise and dance with us, madam,” the king ordered in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “for I vow we will not depart until you agree to our demand.”

“You give me no choice, sirrah,” Catherine replied in her deep, throaty voice with its distinctive hint of a Castilian lisp. “I yield.”

The king lifted his wife out of her bed and set her on the small carpet beside the bed. Her fair skin flushed with embarrassment, right down to her bare feet, and she immediately turned in to him, using his much bigger body to shield her from prying eyes. Wearing only her nightgown and with her hair down, the queen appeared even tinier than she usually did, especially standing next to her massive husband.

His Grace plainly took delight in teasing and embarrassing his
wife, but he was not unkind. He called for her velvet night robe and demanded fur-lined slippers for her feet. Only after she’d been bundled into these warm accessories did he signal for one of his Merry Men to strum the lute he carried.

With great care, the king danced with his wife. George partnered Anne, and others of the Merry Men persuaded the remaining giggling ladies to join in. Anne could tell by the look on Bess Boleyn’s face that she was dancing with her Tom, but was less certain of the identities of the other gentlemen.

“Who is that?” she whispered to George, angling her head toward the Merry Man dancing with the Maid Marian.

“Harry Guildford.”

“And the woman?”

He laughed and shook his head. “No one but Harry knows that. He’s the one who arranged the disguising.”

Solicitous of the queen’s health, the king insisted that she rest after only one dance. Her Grace sank gratefully into a padded chair, one hand resting protectively over her womb, but she watched with apparent pleasure as her husband and his band of Merry Men disported themselves with her ladies.

Anne took her cue from the queen and gave herself over to enjoying the unexpected respite from morning Mass. She danced with her brother Hal and then with a man she thought was Harry Guildford’s older half brother, Sir Edward, although she could not be sure. He barely spoke two words to her. It hardly mattered. Flirtation with “strangers” was the order of the morning.

When His Grace selected Anne to be his next partner, having already danced with Bess and Elizabeth and Isabel de Vargas, too, she accepted the honor with exaggerated delight. “Ooh, you’re a big one, Master Robin Hood,” she cooed, and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

Amused, the king responded in kind, playing his role of outlaw to the hilt. “The better to hold you for ransom, mistress,” he declared. “Now you must give me a kiss to pay for your freedom, or it’s off to the greenwood with me and my men.”

Before she could think of some witty response, His Grace had cupped his big hands beneath her elbows and lifted her off the ground. When her lips were level with his, he met them with a kiss that made up with enthusiasm what it lacked in finesse. Anne felt the heat rush into her cheeks as he set her down again, but she managed not to stumble as he led her into the first movements of a lively country dance.

Less than two weeks later, the queen went into labor prematurely. The child, a daughter, was stillborn. Anne wondered ever after if the king’s early morning raid on his wife’s bedchamber had somehow precipitated the loss.

His Grace’s response to the tragedy was to assure the queen that they were young yet and would have more children.

A
fter more than ten years in the Duke of Buckingham’s household, Madge Geddings was accustomed to the duke’s rages. It did not take much to set him off. Last month, he’d been upset about a romp instigated by the king—an early morning raid on the queen’s bedchamber. Madge had been unable to decide if the duke had been so chagrined because King Henry’s companions were all “upstarts,” as he called them, or because he’d been left out of the fun.

The women of the duke’s household had heard another version of the tale from the duke’s sister, Lady Anne. According to her, the revelers had also included an earl, the duke’s own younger brother, Lord Hal Stafford, and two of the duke’s brothers-in-law, Lord Hastings and Lord Fitzwalter.

This time, the duke’s temper had apparently been ignited by the fact that the king had granted Lord Hal a title. Buckingham had left court immediately following the investiture of his brother as Earl of Wiltshire, a ceremony that had taken place with great pomp at Westminster.