The King's Rose (23 page)

 

TONIGHT, THE LADIES
chatter jubilantly as they dress me in my cloth-of-silver gown. Only Lady Rochford is quiet as she clasps my wild curls into a silver coronet. Our eyes meet in the mirror before us. Her eyes tell me more than she dares say in words.

“Smile, Catherine,” she whispers. “You look beautiful.”

I sit beside the king during the night’s festivities. I smile and laugh when he smiles and laughs. I applaud the acrobats and jugglers and laugh jovially at the jokes of the fool, all the while watching the king for his reaction. Though he presses his hand against mine in the usual manner, I know that he will not visit my bedchamber tonight. I am already pregnant as far as he is concerned. I’m sure he pushes the thought of his recent failure from his mind.

The ladies ready me for bed tonight just as they do every other night, but I am wary. I keep my eyes on Lady Rochford, hoping that she has found some way to remedy my problem. Once my hair has been brushed and I lie in bed in my nightgown, I dismiss the others. They file out dutifully and head to their own beds, and my chamber door is shut behind them. Jane stands beside my bed. We stare at each other for a moment.

Wordless, she lifts my cloak from a nearby chest. I had not realized it, but I’m shivering uncontrollably, though the room is perfectly warm. She drapes the cloak over my shoulders.

“Not here, Jane,” I whisper, suddenly desperate. “It can’t happen here.” Not within sight of the royal jewels, upon a bed fit for a queen. No, no, it can’t happen here. She merely nods in agreement and takes my hand, leading me to a door at the opposite end of my bedchamber. Before passing over the threshold, she pulls the hood of the cloak over my hair.

The hallway before us is pitch black; I lean upon Jane’s arm for guidance. She shows me to a small adjacent bedchamber with clean linens upon the narrow bed. No candles are lit, and the chamber is windowless; the air is completely still. I am glad of this, though the darkness is unnerving. I begin pacing, for fear that spies may linger in the shadows.

“Calm yourself,” she whispers in my ear. She pulls the cloak from my shoulders and shows me to the bed. “Only Joan Bulmer and I know where you will be.”

My breath stops in my throat:
Joan knows?
Does it not follow that all of the ladies of Lambeth will know?

“We need someone, a lady-in-waiting, to guard the chamber upstairs while I guard the door to this one. Joan promised to keep it a secret. Who would you have suggested?”

I shake my head, mutely. Jane is right. Better it be Joan than any of the others.

“There is no other way to access this chamber but through the door I will guard. You will be perfectly safe.”

She lifts my hand and I feel a different hand grasp it—a warm hand with long fingers. Thomas is already here, he has been waiting here in the darkness for my arrival. Jane pats my shoulder reassuringly. I hear her open and close the door behind her. The room is silent; but for his hand in mine I would think I sat here alone.

“Catherine,” he whispers in my ear. He sits upon the bed beside me.

“I can’t see you.”

“Catherine, it’s me, Thomas. Don’t worry.”

I lift a hand and touch his hair, his face, tenderly—the softness of his lips, the crinkling skin at the corners of his eyes. It is him. I sigh with certainty, but I’m still trembling. He clasps his hands around my arms, rubbing them warm. I’m about to say something else when he moves forward and kisses me.

It is a peculiar thing to feel that you are living your dream. I had thought never to experience another kiss like this, from him, but here I am. Here we are. His lips are full and warm and tentative upon mine. There is perfection here—just like that night in the garden—sweet perfection in the gentleness of his touch that reminds me of all the hope I ever had for the two of us. It makes tears well in my eyes to think of it, my breath catching in my throat.

“Shh, shh,”
he whispers, calming me. He kisses me again and slips into the bed beside me. His hands are warm upon my skin, and there is something careful and reverent about his touch. He, too, is caught in the wonderment of this, of us, together again. That we are doing something that I know we have both spent countless nights merely dreaming of. He pulls the nightdress over my head, his bare chest pressed against my bare chest. He covers me, covers all of me, and I feel warm and protected. I feel loved and in love.

 

A WOMAN LIES
upon the stone floor, draped in silk, awaiting her lover’s arrival. He comes to her in darkness, hovering for a moment over her sleeping form. We can see clearly their two shapes in the torchlight: the languid, stretching body of the woman, and the body of the man standing over her, with broad white wings upon his back.

We are in the hall of Pontefract Castle, watching a tableau unfold before us: the myth of Cupid and Psyche. Psyche is visited nightly by a lover she is forbidden to see in the light of day. The hall is silent as we watch the two of them, watching him as he watches her, gazing lovingly at her face, her body. A soft gasp and sigh pours from the crowd as the winged Cupid moves forward, waking his love with a kiss.

When the curtain is drawn over the scene, the silent hall erupts in thunderous applause. I glance over carefully, very carefully, in the dimness—just a flash of eyes to see that Thomas is watching me.

I try not to think about him but, like Psyche, I can’t help myself: I think about him during Mass, during royal ceremonies and banquets. I think about him as local dignitaries are presented to me, bowing over my hand in veneration. I can feel his eyes upon me, can feel my skin warm and tingling where he last touched me, can feel his lips upon my lips. I have never felt anything so intoxicating, so overwhelming. We’ve had three nights together—three stolen nights, dreamlike, unreal. But they have awoken something within me that is all too real, something that lay dormant for years, awaiting his touch.

I look at Henry and fear what I have done. But I had no other choice to save myself, to give Henry what he thinks I already have. This is the only thing I know will please him, the one thing that is required. I imagine how happy he will be at my first announcement of pregnancy, and I feel full of joy and relief for both of us. I will have no choice but to push all thoughts of Thomas aside then so as not to tarnish this gift I am giving to Henry—the gift of a healthy son. I have done all of this for him.

But that does not stop me from craving Thomas, now. My mind is wary, but my body follows its own responses. Kisses repeat themselves in my head through the day. I am sitting here in this hall, applauding the performers and smiling at all assembled, but only half of me is here. The other part of me is already gone, already reveling in what the night may bring. When I look at Henry I smile, and merely pretend that it is all a dream. I’ve long lived a double life with my dreams, so I am accustomed to this feeling. I am like Psyche, indulging in a night of love that will flee as soon as the sun rises.

 

IT IS MID-SEPTEMBER and we’ve left Pontefract for York. My blood has arrived, again. Late, but here it is. I have no alternative, or else the date of birth would be suspect: I must seduce the king, in spite of our last disastrous attempt at coupling. I must be sweet and seductive. I must not think about Thomas.

Upon our arrival in York, I sit beside Henry all during the evening festivities, not even getting up to dance.

“I suppose I’m too tired,” I tell him, my voice low. “I feel already eager for bed.” My words are innocent but my eyes are seductive, and Henry does not miss their meaning. I am relieved that I can still have this effect upon him, though the effort to charm him—to be laughing and giddy and seem free of any worry or care—does tire me. I make an effort to think about Henry in the blandest, most basic sense: he is my husband, and I must do my duty by him. I drink an extra glass of wine before following him to his bedchamber.

 

MY NIGHTS WITH
the king have passed easily, and he seemed pleased with my affections. I am hopeful that my blood will cease, but other thoughts invade the simplicity of these prayers: Thomas’s long fingers upon my pale skin, Thomas’s full lips pressed to mine. Thomas’s dark eyes glistening in the light of a single candle, staring at my nakedness. I cannot look at myself—my own hands, lips, breasts—without imagining him kissing, caressing me. If only I had something to hold close to me so that I might always remember what it was like to be held in his arms. Some token of our love so that I might be reminded of it every day of my life.

In the middle of the night, I rise from bed and write a brief note by candlelight.

I hope he will return a love letter to me, via Jane, before I arrange our next meeting. Then I can replace all of those old letters I so foolishly put to the flames. And I will be able to read his words of love over and over again, and hear his voice even when he cannot lie beside me, whispering in the dark.

It’s been two days and I’ve not received a visit from the king. And I’ve not received a letter from Thomas, though he did give me a message in person:

“Tonight?” he whispered to me yesterday, in the midst of a graceful pavane. His expression remained measured, cautious.

I only smiled in return, a picture of innocence, garlanded in pink roses in celebration of summer.

“Please—make it be soon. I beg you.” He smiled, but his eyes were burning. “Please.”

I had hoped for a letter, but the sight of Thomas’s ardent gaze is dangerously exciting. The king is distracted with the renovations to St. Mary’s and preparations to meet his nephew James; I know not when next he will visit me. By then I could have missed my chance to feel Thomas’s weight pressed upon me in bed. Other young women get to feel this. Why should I deny myself, if my love is here and waiting for me? How can I deny my passion? Perhaps I should be stronger, but I’m not. Besides, I have to be certain of a pregnancy.

“I should like to meet with Thomas again,” I inform Lady Rochford quietly, when we are alone in my bedchamber. She glances at me, her eyebrows raised.

“You’d best be cautious, Your Majesty.”

“You’re lecturing about caution? Now?”

“This is not a time to indulge your crude fantasies,” she informs me. “This is a means to a particular end.”

“Yes, and don’t you agree that we should be well assured of that end? This is my chance, these next few nights. The king is otherwise occupied. Still, I ought to use the time to my best advantage.”

“You are certainly the duchess’s granddaughter.” She sighs. I’m not sure how I feel about this comparison, but Jane nods her head in resignation. “I will arrange it.”

“Do not act so pious with me now,” I scold her. “This was not my idea at first, you will remember. Besides, you’ve been at court longer than I have.” I eye her carefully as I say this. “I’ve heard tell of the corruption you’ve witnessed. This is nothing so depraved as all that. It’s a means to a particular end, as you said.”

She is quiet for a moment, and doesn’t return my gaze.

“Are you talking about Anne?” she asks.

“Yes. Am I allowed to talk about her?”

Anne indulged in the most sordid, immoral, lustful impulses with a lowly court musician, as well as her own brother—Jane’s husband—in addition to the enchantments she cast upon the king, to fool him into marrying her. All I want is a baby, just like the king. And I am in love with Thomas, truly in love. What I am doing, though certainly a sin, cannot be quite so horrible as the acts Queen Anne committed for pure pleasure.

“You should not, but I suppose you are allowed.”

“She deserved what happened to her, didn’t she?” Jane would know this better than anyone.

“You must understand this, Catherine. The Howards only support those who will benefit the family.”

“I know that.”

“No, I do not think you do. If Anne was accused of being unable to bear a son, a continuation of the king’s curse, then they would abandon her. If she was to be found a witch, then the Boleyns and the Howards would be the first to light the pyre at her feet so that they would come out of the flames on the other side: clean and pure and loyal to their king, unblemished by their daughter’s sins. And they did—just look where you are now.”

Jane is looking at me strangely, her eyes lit uncannily by the light of the fire. Her words make my heart beat loudly in my ears.

“If Anne had been exiled, she would have existed as a reminder of the unclean thing that was once crowned Queen of England. It was best for the family not only to remove Anne from the throne, but to dispose of her completely.”

“I know. That was what the king wanted.”

“True, he did—even before Anne knew it, I think. But what happened to her, in the end, was for the best for all involved. They snuffed out her very existence, as if she had never happened.”

“I am doing what the duchess told me to do, what you told me to do,” I remind her. “All I want is to be pregnant.”

“And you will be pregnant, and soon. I am sure of it.” She reaches out and rests her hand upon mine. “I am only telling you what I know. You are the king’s wife. Your life is in his hands.”

“And in my family’s hands.”