The King's Rose (15 page)

“Do not mock my fears, woman!” he snaps. I jolt back at the sound of his voice. “You’ve been queen for mere months—you know not what a lifetime of kingship can do to a man’s soul.” He rises from the bed abruptly and stands, staring into the fire. I want nothing more than to run from this room, but I know that I can’t.

“I do not mock you, Your Grace. I only strive to be the type of wife of whom God will approve.” Or are the sins of my past yet another curse against Henry, piled on with all the rest? “Will you not let me comfort you?”

I move forward again, tentatively, and place my hands upon his arms, resting my head against his back. This has worked in the past, many times, pulling him out of a glum mood or worry about politics . . . all I have to do is to get him to turn around and look at me. I press myself against him, my breasts flat against his back. But he will not turn. “I live with fear, every day, Catherine. I am a target for them all—everyone eager to do away with me and climb on to my throne.”

“No, my lord, everyone loves you. How can you say—”

“Words of love keep no one safe!” he rages, turning and breaking from my embrace. He glares at me for a moment; I’m horrified by the anger burning in those bright eyes. “They will say one thing to my face and yet another behind my back. They could slip poison into my food, or burn my palace, or pay an assassin to visit me in my sleep. Do you understand me, Catherine, when I tell you the danger of being king?”

“Of course,” I whisper, my voice cracked. “Of course I understand.”

“You are a fool to think this crown keeps me safe! You are a woman—nay, a girl. A girl I have dressed as a queen. You will never understand.”

He turns to glare into the fire, as if I’m no longer present. Indeed, I feel as if I have vanished from the room completely. Somehow, the sight of his back turned to me is more frightening than that flash of anger in his eyes.

“You are dismissed,” he grumbles.

“I bid you good evening, my lord.” I perform the proper obeisance, though he does not deign to turn and look at me. I exit the king’s chamber, trying to muster a fake courtier’s smile for the benefit of the guards stationed there. They are all gracious, dutiful; I have no doubt that they listened to every word. The ambition of the Howards has led me directly into danger. If the crown offers no safety to Henry, then certainly it will offer no safety to me.

 

I WEAR
MY
GREEN VELVET gown today with the new emerald-and-pearl necklace, perfectly complementing the row of pearls embroidered in the neckline of the gown and the trim of my green hood. As much as I would like to avoid him, I’ve invited my husband for an evening meal in my presence chamber, hoping that food and entertainment will cheer him. I had hoped that the sight of me thus arrayed in his recent gift would cheer Henry, but I can tell that his mood is still grim. There is much that this king harbors in his great, old soul. While his body grew misshapen from illness and lack of exercise, his soul was ravaged by lies and mistrust.

All day, the halls of the palace have been rife with whispers about the rebellions in the northern regions. Watching the fool’s antics, I can see the stress of these rebellions settling in the king’s spine, his shoulders drooping and his back hunched forward like an old man’s. But suddenly his spine straightens in his chair, his shoulders roll back. His blue eyes alight with interest.

I follow the path of Henry’s gaze to see a pretty Seymour girl before us, recently added as a maid to my household. She is petite, with honey-colored hair, wearing a gown of brown velvet trimmed with gold, the square neckline accentuating her ample bosom. She looks a bit like me, or perhaps how I once looked: that wary gaze, that tentative smile I wore when I first approached the king.

I open my mouth to say something to divert his attention, to bring his focus back to me. But my horror keeps me mute. She’s just the king’s type, of course, that’s why the Seymours placed her in my household—just as the Howards placed me in the service of Anne of Cleves.

“Mistress Mary,” he says, in his charming, sweet tone. The sound of it roils in my gut. The girl before us curtsies gracefully, bowing her head and lowering her eyes. No doubt she has been well schooled by Jane Seymour’s brothers, Edward and Thomas. Perhaps they are expecting that I will be pregnant soon and want a lady ready to distract the king while I suffer the confinement of the birthing chamber. Henry seems surprisingly innocent of all of this—perhaps he is a pawn in this game, just as much as I was. Just as much as this Seymour girl, standing before us.

“I trust you find your new position to your liking?” the king asks.

“Indeed, Your Majesty. The queen is a kind mistress, as you are a kind and generous master.” Her eyes flash up at his only briefly, before her final obeisance. I smile and nod at the girl, and she steps aside. This is the smile I imagine Katherine of Aragon pasted upon her face when met with the king’s lingering gaze over Mistress Anne Boleyn; or Anne of Cleves’s smile when her new husband first took a fancy to me. I take a sip of wine, my throat suddenly dry.

For the rest of the night I laugh aloud, I applaud, I sparkle. I am fun and youthful and merry, hoping that the king will admire my slim waist, my firm full breasts straining from the bodice of my gown. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see his eyes upon me, but just as quickly they flash back to the lass in brown velvet dancing before us. Is it possible that Henry has become bored with his bride? They still say that he is more affectionate, more indulgent with me than with all the others, but clearly his adoration of me does not stop another lady from catching his eye.

I must become everything to him—it is my only hope. I must become pregnant to save Henry, and save myself.

The duchess sits before a roaring fire in my chamber, tapping a deck of cards efficiently against the polished table. She motions for me to sit across from her.

“You must fix it, Catherine,” she remarks succinctly, as if we were talking about a torn hem. “You have created this mess and now you must fix it.”

She is talking about the Seymour girl, who sits in the main chamber at this very moment, her golden head bent over the embroidery on her lap.

“I am trying, Duchess. It is difficult. I know not what to do.”

“Difficult to keep his attention?” she murmurs disapprovingly. “You’ve not been married long, Catherine. I thought you would have known better how to handle him.”

Her words sting me; I look down at my cards.

“Are you listening to me? I would never have supported you if I thought you would not be able to handle him.”

“I am trying my best.”

My voice cracks with emotion; the duchess lifts her hand in warning. We sit quietly for a moment, waiting for the chatter in the adjacent room to grow louder before we continue.

“All is not lost for you, I think. But you must remember how it was, in the beginning. You must remember the power of seduction.” Her eyes flash at mine, a mischievous smile tugging at the corners of her thin lips. “It is what got you here, after all. You must not be lazy, simply because he is not spending his every hour seducing you. Perhaps it is time that you seduce him.”

“They say that if I don’t produce an heir soon, he may choose another bride.”

“Indeed, they also say he may take back that Flanders Mare.”

“Please tell me if you know anything.”

“I know only what you know, my dear—only what those fools in the banquet hall babble about when they have taken too much ale. What I have heard is not the question here. It is up to you to control the situation.”

“Control the king?”

“In the bedchamber, at least. Think, Catherine. The masquerade of a virgin is over. Now you must give him more, you must desire him. You must please him so that he desires no one but you—at least until you are with child.”

My eyes wander over to Mary Seymour, her golden hair bathed in the light of the fire.

“If you can’t keep him away from that Seymour girl, we’ll have to find someone else who can.”

“Someone else?” I look at the duchess, but she is suddenly absorbed in rearranging her cards. I want to reach over the table and shake them from her grasp. “What do you mean?”

“If the king is in need of a mistress, there is always your cousin Mistress Norris.”

“You wouldn’t—” Before I can finish, the duchess flashes her pale gray eyes at mine; they are unrelentingly cold, like ice. It seems clear that yes, indeed, she would.

“If you can’t keep him from planting his seed in another Seymour, there had best be another Howard girl in his bed to distract him.”

“But then, what will become of me?”

“I don’t know, Catherine,” she observes coolly, placing her cards upon the table in a fan. “What
will
become of you?”

 

TONIGHT I WEAR
my pale blue silk gown with a simple blue hood, the same I wore when I first caught the king’s eye. I eschew the royal jewels for the tear-shaped sapphire—the king’s first gift to me. Gazing at myself in the mirror, I realize just how limited are the ways in which I know how to please him. I must use what power I have perfectly: I bow deeply, humbly before him in his parlor.

When I stand, the king is smiling at me. I’m both relieved and confused. The last time we were alone, I was witness to his rage. He has not visited my chamber since. Will he say something about our argument? Or has he already forgotten it? Seeing my lute in my hand, he waves me over to my usual chair. Uncertain, I sit beside him and begin to sing:

“Delightful, Catherine! You know I love hearing my compositions sung in such a sweet voice.” His eyes sparkle in that way I’ve seen before. I had worried he was still angry at me. Now I wonder if I even take up that much space in his mind. He is a king, and has more important things to think about.

He touches my hand warmly. I put the lute aside as he tugs me forward, pulling me onto his lap, where he kisses my face, my neck.

“I have missed you,” he breathes.

“And I have missed you.”

“I have been—busy.” He looks up at me, his face close to mine. His gaze is warm, familiar. His pink mouth is softened by his smile. But still, I can remember the look of vivid rage I saw but days ago—I worry that I may not be able to forget it.

“I understand, my lord.”

“Sweet bird,” he whispers in my ear, “how I’ve missed my sweet bird.”

But I know my work is not complete. Tonight is different because I know it must be so. The duchess was right; the masquerade of a virgin is over. It is no longer enough for me to lie there and passively submit myself to him. I must offer the king something different: a young woman desirous of him, and him alone.

Luckily, he responds to my boldness with a vigor I hadn’t thought possible. When his passions are spent, he grips me tightly in his arms—almost too tightly, pushing the air out of my lungs—gasping and rasping in my ear: “You are mine forever, Catherine. You are mine only, mine forever . . .”

I recite the same words of my love and lust in his ear.
You are mine, Henry, you are mine, forever . . .

But I am not such a fool to believe that this works both ways.

 

THE KING’S PASSION for me renewed, I have spent every night of the last fortnight in his bedchamber, often staying till morning. The duchess is pleased with me for evidently upholding my half of the bargain. Meanwhile, Henry is eager to do anything for me, as if I will become pregnant as a reward for his many gifts.

“What is your heart’s desire?” he asks, once his passion has been sated. “Jewels? Fabulous gowns?”

A coronation,
I think,
more grand than that for Queen Anne.
But I know better than to overplay my hand.

“You’ve given me beautiful jewels and gowns.” I sigh, contented.

“Yet you do not seem to lose interest in more,” he jokes.

“I’ve never experienced a true royal Christmas,” I tell him, innocently enough.

“Ah, I see. It is revelry that delights my young queen. Very well. Where will this royal Christmas take place?”

“At Hampton Court,” I tell him.

A shadow passes briefly over his eyes. Perhaps Hampton still harbors the ghost of Cousin Anne for him, for I can sense her in the halls when I am there. Still, I love Hampton and my dream of a sumptuous royal Christmas there is simply too tempting to keep secret. And perhaps this, the first Christmas of our marriage, will finally defy the ghost of Anne in Henry’s memory.

“Of course, my dear,” he says, squeezing me close to him. “Hampton it is!”

Let the walls of Hampton echo with such celebrations that our revelry frightens all ghosts from the shadows! Let the vision of me, dancing in a gown of red and gold, burn through all of the memories of his past wives, and lay all of those old ghosts to rest.

Over a hundred guests have arrived to participate in the Christmas festivities at Hampton Court. In honor of their arrival, and to mark the beginning of the celebrations, a magnificent hunting expedition sets out. The snowy woods are filled with heavy hoofbeats. Appareled in velvet and furs, I ride my silver-gray mare toward the front of the pack, behind the king. The woods are pale blue and gray with snow; the trees’ icy limbs glisten, silvery in the bright winter sun. It is a marvelous day, and I feel myself growing short of breath, even a bit light-headed as we head faster and faster through the trees, over the open meadow in pursuit of our prey. Horses snort, dogs bark. When the dogs rush forward, I carefully pull myself from the cavalcade, positioned atop a hillock of snow.