The King's Damsel (16 page)

“She might
like
to be queen,” I told Rafe, “but there is no possibility that she will get her wish. If His Grace should succeed in winning an annulment, he will have to wed a foreign princess. That is the way countries seal alliances. That is why Princess Mary will one day marry a king or a prince from another land.” I was quite certain of my reasoning. King Henry would never wed one of his own subjects. Where was the advantage to England in that?

Rafe took a step closer, until I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. He smelled faintly of cinnamon. “Then why does the king send so many expensive gifts to Mistress Anne?”

“How do you know that he does?”

“Do you think anyone, even a king, can conjure up silks and
jewelry by magic? London merchants have received many payments of late from the king’s privy purse, for everything from an emerald ring and diamonds and rubies set in roses and hearts to gilt and silver bindings for books.” Apparently servants in London enjoyed greater freedom than those at court, and felt no compunction about keeping their thoughts to themselves.

“I am certain you have misinterpreted what you think you know,” I said in my most haughty tone of voice. “Courtiers ofttimes play at love, even kings. They swear fealty to a lady,
call
her their mistress, and give her gifts, but it is all a game.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You cannot be such an innocent! The king’s mistresses most assuredly warm his bed. How else do you explain Henry Fitzroy?”

“I will concede that Mistress Anne may be the king’s concubine, but surely she is no more than that. Why ever would he
marry
her?”

He shrugged. “He is the king. He can do whatever he wants.”

I frowned, suddenly uncertain what to believe.

“The citizens of London do not like the idea of a divorce,” Rafe said. “If a man can set aside his aging wife and replace her with a younger woman, why then where is the sanctity of marriage?”

“The citizens of London appear to have too much time for idle speculation,” I shot back, trying to sound severe.

Rafe dared to smooth one callused finger over my forehead. “You should not scowl so fiercely, Mistress Lodge. Your face might stick that way, all creased and wrinkly.”

I stepped quickly back, cheeks once again aflame. He was not even wearing gloves! His bare skin had brushed against mine. I opened my mouth to remonstrate with him, but his gaze abruptly shifted to a point behind me. I turned to find Mistress Pinckney and Master Kent returning.

“Is everything settled, Mother?” Rafe asked.

I completed my business with the silkwoman in short order and returned by way of a back stair to the princess’s privy chamber. Pushing the memory of Rafe Pinckney’s bold behavior to the back of my mind, I debated the wisdom of sharing the rumors he’d repeated to me with the princess. Her Grace valued the truth, but was what the apprentice had told me true? I did not wish to distress Princess Mary without cause.

It made sense to me that Mistress Anne Boleyn might have followed in her older sister’s footsteps and become the king’s mistress, but surely no lady of the court would be so foolish as to think His Grace would
marry
her. Mistress Anne was one of Queen Catherine’s maids of honor. A member of the queen’s household was all she could ever hope to be, no matter how much the king enjoyed her company. When His Grace tired of her, he would find her a husband, just as he had for Bessie Blount after she gave birth to his bastard son.

“Have you spoken with the silkwoman?” Lady Salisbury asked, catching sight of me still dithering on the threshold of the privy chamber.

“I have, my lady. She will supply all our needs in good time for the revel.”

“Excellent,” said the countess. She relieved me of the list I’d forgotten I still held clutched tight in one hand. She gave me a sharp-eyed look. “Does something trouble you, Tamsin?”

“No, my lady.” I forced myself to smile to back up my claim. I had made my decision. I would not tell the princess what Rafe Pinckney had said. He’d done naught but pass on a rumor, one that seemed unlikely to prove true. Out of consideration of Her Grace’s feelings, I would keep the story to myself . . . and pray very hard that it had no foundation in fact.

T
he princess lived at court throughout that November and December of 1527. She was much in her father’s company, which did not please Mistress Anne Boleyn at all. Just after the feast day of St. Thomas the Apostle, she left to celebrate Yuletide at her family home, Hever Castle in Kent, some thirty miles from Greenwich. Queen Catherine presided over the festivities at court, as she always did, the king at her side.

The celebrations included a tournament, but it ended early because the light was so poor. The banquets and disguisings were more successful. Our masque and dance, for which we disguised ourselves as ladies of Mantua, was well received, but the king still managed to avoid private conversation with his daughter.

Oddly, I caught myself noticing how much silk the master of revels had used in costumes and scenery. Even the trees for one of the disguisings were made of it—a hawthorn for the house of Tudor and a mulberry representing the French royal family of Valois.

There were more celebrations when news arrived of the escape of Pope Clement VII from Rome. The Holy City had been captured
earlier in the year by Emperor Charles V. As good Catholics, all true English men and women rejoiced at the Holy Father’s deliverance. At the time, I was not aware of any deeper significance to His Holiness’s troubles. Indeed, I allowed myself to be lulled by the appearance of harmony between King Henry and Queen Catherine into thinking that His Grace had changed his mind about setting aside his wife.

There followed an exceptionally cold and bitter winter. Even parts of the sea froze. In February at Hunsdon in Hertfordshire, the house the princess most often lived in when she was not at court, I entered my sixteenth year.

A few days later, I was summoned to the little room Lady Salisbury used for private prayer and study. Sir Lionel Daggett was waiting there, warming himself by the fire.

It had been a year and a half since I’d seen him, but I had not forgotten our last meeting. Instantly wary, I lingered in the doorway.

“Come in, child,” Lady Salisbury chided me, her long, narrow face tight with disapproval. “Make your curtsey to Sir Lionel.”

I made a perfunctory obeisance, rising quickly to approach my guardian. “I do beg your pardon, sir. I did not expect to see you here.”

He had changed in the intervening months, and not for the better. Where once he had been lean, he now showed signs of frequent overindulgence in food and drink. The sharp point of his narrow jaw sported the beginning of an additional chin.

Nodding in satisfaction, Lady Salisbury picked up a piece of needlework and began to stitch. For propriety’s sake, she intended to remain where she was. Sir Lionel scowled, but he knew better than to try to dismiss a countess with royal blood in her veins.

“Is there a reason for your visit, sir?” I asked, all sweetness. I felt braver now that I knew I would not be left alone with him.

He removed a document from an inside pocket in his doublet and unrolled it on the wooden surface of the countess’s table. “You wish, I assume, to keep Hartlake Manor running smoothly?”

I frowned, staring without comprehension at the words in front of me. “I cannot read this. It is not written in English.”

“No, this is Latin. To make it legal.”

“What does it say?”

“You need not shoot such suspicious looks my way, Thomasine. This document does no more than confirm Hugo Wynn in his post as your steward. I assumed that would meet with your approval, but if you would prefer I appoint someone else—”

“No! It is . . . that is, Master Wynn knows the land and will do right by me.”

But still I hesitated to dip quill in ink. Did Hugo resent that I had inherited everything while his grandchild got nothing?
Would
he do right by me, in truth? But I knew of no one else who was as familiar with my estate as he was. When Sir Lionel pointed to the place where I should write my name, I inscribed my signature in bold letters.

My guardian sanded the ink himself, then carefully rolled the document back up and tucked it away again.

“Is that all you came for?” I asked uneasily. Sir Lionel looked far too pleased with himself.

“What other matter could there be?” He slanted a look at the countess, contentedly embroidering in the corner.

I could have told him that Princess Mary’s lady mistress had been growing ever more hard of hearing in the time I’d been a member of the household, but I did not. I did not want to encourage Sir Lionel’s confidences.

He retrieved his traveling cloak from the peg where it had been hung to dry and made another little bow in my direction. “I must be
on my way. I would not wish to intrude on the princess’s hospitality. Besides, I have other matters of business to attend to before I return to my duties in Cornwall.”

I had no idea what those duties were and I did not ask. It was enough to know that Sir Lionel would soon be gone again and that his post kept him away from both the king’s court and that of Princess Mary. Although, this time, my guardian had been civil, I had no desire to spend any more time in his company than was necessary. As soon as he left, I returned to the princess’s presence chamber, took up my sewing, and banished Sir Lionel Daggett from my thoughts.

B
y the time we returned to Greenwich for the annual May Day revels, spring was well advanced. No sooner had we settled in, however, than Princess Mary fell ill with a fever and a rash. Several of the queen’s women suffered a similar affliction. At first the royal physicians feared it was an outbreak of smallpox. Then they decided it was the measles.

Older and more experienced ladies were set to nursing the princess. The maids of honor were left to their own devices. Maria took the opportunity to visit her mother and father.

I was alone in the maidens’ dormitory when she returned. “What is wrong?” I asked, taking note of the damp, crumpled handkerchief clutched in her fist. “Have more ladies fallen ill?”

She shook her head, reaching up with the bare fingers of her free hand to swipe angrily at the new tears forming in her eyes. “If only one of them would!”

I gave her a moment to compose herself before probing further. We had long since established an unspoken bond of trust between
us, based on our mutual devotion to the princess. Maria did not hesitate long before telling me what it was that had upset her.

“It is Mistress Anne Boleyn, Tamsin. The king has singled her out, again, and this time in a most remarkable way. As soon as he heard of the sickness among the queen’s ladies, he gave orders that Mistress Anne was to move into lodgings off the gallery over the tiltyard. She was already living in separate rooms, apart from the other maids of honor. Clearly His Grace wishes to make certain she remains safe from any infection.”

“I am not surprised. She has been His Grace’s concubine for some time.”

Maria worried her lower lip. “My father says she has made the king fall in love with her.” She lowered her voice. “Mayhap with witchcraft. And Father does not think she
has
yielded her body to His Grace. He believes she is playing for higher stakes.”

Rafe Pinckney had said that, too, months ago.

“She takes a great risk to tease the king. I have heard that His Grace has a terrible temper.” Everyone at court knew that, even those, like me, who had never witnessed an explosion of his wrath.

“So, I am told, does Mistress Anne.”

I felt my eyes widen at this intelligence. I found it difficult to imagine anyone brave enough to quarrel with King Henry. He was physically intimidating, with his height and girth and his booming voice. And he was the king.

“Father says that King Henry wants nothing more than to please the lady,” Maria added.

“Would he go so far as to make her his queen?” I whispered.

“Pray God he will not, but who can say?”

That night, when Edyth came to the maidens’ dormitory to help me undress for bed, I asked her outright if she had seen Rose lately.

Edyth made a face.

“Does she still serve Mistress Anne Boleyn?”

“Oh, yes,” my tiring maid assured me, “and full of pride about that she is, too.” Edyth had almost entirely lost her country accent.

“What reason has she to boast?” I asked as Edyth stepped behind me to untie my laces.

“Why, of the attentions the king shows to her mistress. What else?”

I waited.

“The king visited Windsor Castle in March,” Edyth went on as she freed the last of the points holding bodice to skirt and let the latter fall to the floor. “His Grace did not even take his riding household with him, only a few favored courtiers.”

I stepped out of the puddle of fabric and waited while she gathered it up. It took great effort to contain my impatience. “What of that? King Henry is wont to go off hunting with only a few boon companions.”

“Mistress Anne Boleyn met His Grace at Windsor.”

“In the queen’s absence?” Without the queen’s household in residence, there should have been no women there, except perhaps for the few courtiers’ wives who had permanent lodgings in the castle.

“Mistress Anne’s brother was one of the men who accompanied the king,” Edyth said.

“That hardly makes his sister’s presence respectable.”

“Rose says King Henry sent for her, so she had to go, but she took her mother with her.”

“To guard her reputation?”

“I do not think Mistress Anne cares a fig for her reputation. Her behavior while she was there was most improper.”

“She shared the king’s bed?”

“I do not know about that,” Edyth said, freeing me from my sleeves and setting them aside so she could remove my bodice and
loosen the body-stitchet beneath, “but the king and the lady went hunting together every day and sometimes Mistress Anne rode
with
the king.” When I did not react, she poked me in the ribs. “On the same horse, Mistress Tamsin. On a pillion behind His Grace, her arms wrapped around the king’s waist!”