The Queen's Mistake (5 page)

“Father, she is an innocent to the complexities of court.”

“Ripe as a new spring plum, I say. Perfect for the old hound.”

“But perfect for what?”

“For anything the king desires. Whore or queen, either choice would help our standing. For however long it lasts, she seems quite malleable and virginal enough—and the Cleves mare is certainly not long for the position. I am told His Majesty seeks to divorce her already, and she has been his bride for but a few months.”

“Would we consign our own Cat to a fate like the Spanish queen,
or my poor cousin Anne after her? Even his wife Jane Seymour enjoyed no greater fate than death in childbirth.”

“If Catherine can be useful to the family, by all means. At the very least, we can present her as one, and hope for the other whilst we wait.”

“Father, you are a ruthless man.”

“No doubt one of the qualities you most admire in me,” quipped the Duke of Norfolk to his son.

Chapter Two

 

 

F
or two young men who had grown up in the same village and struck an interest in the same girl, Henry Manox and Francis Dereham could not have been more different. Catherine was reminded strongly of that fact yet again the moment she stepped into the music room and saw Manox standing beside the virginals. His slim, slightly pasty face was, as always, alive with the same kind of worshipful devotion that had earned her disdain months ago when she had begun to notice Francis.

Henry sat dressed in unadorned beige velvet with an ivory collar, his slightly trembling fingertips moving onto the instrument as a blind man would touch things. When their eyes met, she knew that he knew what was about to happen.

“It is good to see you again, Catherine,” he said, his thin voice holding a slight quaver.

There was a moment of strained silence between them. His fingers left the virginal and his hand dropped limply back to his side. At the age of fourteen, Catherine had been fond of him and she had waited for their lessons with girlish anticipation. She had even enjoyed the moments of their nearness as they had sat in intimate
proximity to each other, two stools side by side before the keys. Even now she could remember first becoming aware of the fragrance of him, not musky like her uncle, and not even largely male, but slightly sweet and vaguely seductive.

“It was you, was it not?” she said, still looking into his glassy eyes above a small, weak mouth. “Spiteful little thing that she is, Mistress Lassells told you, and you, hoping to gain favor, told Grandmother where I was last night, didn’t you?”

He tipped his head, not denying the accusation, still gazing at her with the adoration that had begun to make her feel slightly ill.

“Shall we begin our lesson?”

Catherine moved nearer, glancing back at the open door to make certain no servant was listening this time.

“How could you do that to me? You knew she would flog me for it.”

“Sadly, the path of last resort is sometimes the only means of making youth see the error of their ways.”

Her eyes narrowed. “It was not an error of my ways when it was you touching me, was it, Master Manox?”

“Dereham is beneath you, Catherine,” he declared in a pleading whisper as his eyes narrowed slightly. “He is just like all of the others. I am different.”

Light footfalls beyond the open door silenced them both for a moment until they passed. Catherine drew nearer, sank onto a stool and took up her lute. The pleading never left his dark eyes.

“How could you have done that to me?” she asked again as she began to strum, entirely unable to play an actual tune for her anger at how she had been betrayed by a man she had trusted.

“Do you not realize how unfavorably you are being used by nearly everyone? How you are bound to be hurt by their ambitions?”

She stopped and really looked at him for the first time since she had come into the music room. “Not if it is by my choice, Master Manox.”

“I am told you are troth-plighted now with Dereham.”

Again there were footfalls beyond the open door outside in the corridor. It was now clear that someone meant to listen to their exchange. In this place she had grown accustomed to the notion of having no privacy, only judgment and punishment.

“Is it the truth then?”

Catherine felt herself tense even more, plucking at random strings only to make a bit of noise and maintain the impression of a true lesson between them. The nearness of Manox was almost repugnant to her now. He did not understand her need for adventure and excitement, here where there was nothing other than monotony and loneliness. He certainly did not understand
her
. Catherine had been a young girl of fourteen with Henry Manox, one with a girl’s longing and a naive perspective. But that was her no longer.

There was no one here she could trust. She was glad to be leaving. Glad the decision about her betrothal to Francis had been made for her as well and she had not needed to break his heart.

It came to her then, as Manox sat beside her, piqued with expectation, that he was a man whom she had once believed for a moment in time she might love, just as she had later believed she might love Francis. But now he was a man who could ruin things for her out of jealousy, as pious Mary Lassells was trying to do out of envy. Mary may have seemed like an innocent servant, but she could not have been more different from the others.

“Mary is an evil, envious girl,” she blurted out.

“Take care, Cat. That is all I am saying. I have tried only to protect you.”

“I wish you would not be angry with me,” she replied sheepishly,
honing her skills at manipulating men for the pleasure she found in it. Henry was taken aback by her sudden shift in tone.

“I wish more things than you could ever count,” he said, softly, walking toward her. “I still have the cap with our initials that you made for me.” He reached for her hand.

Catherine took it, forcing a strained smile. “I’m glad. I would not want you ever to forget me completely,” she said, knowing he’d hear more in her words than she intended. Yet she enjoyed watching him believe her. It was part of the game she was learning, and it was good practice.

After he had gone, Catherine felt herself smile. To someone so young, the feeling of total power over another person, like the power Manox’s lust for her gave her over him, was utterly seductive. If there was a chance that she might go to court, that she might begin her life in truth, Catherine wanted more than anything to take it. Certainly more than she wanted either young man with whom she had so foolishly tarried for lack of anything better to do at the time.

Mary Lassells was waiting for Catherine in the dormitory. It was late afternoon and everything in the long, vacant hall was gray with shadows and filtered light. The other girls were serving the duchess downstairs, so the two girls were alone when Catherine came into the room.

“How do you manipulate men like that and sleep peacefully at night?”

Catherine spun around. “So it was you listening. I am beginning to know the players at last, it seems, even though I am about to change theaters.”

“It must be nice to know your future,” Mary said coolly.

“None of us knows that. But I do know I am going to court, so you needn’t concern yourself any longer with how I sleep, or do not.”

They faced each other like two cats. “Henry deserves better. For that matter, so does Master Dereham,” Mary said.

Catherine arched a brow contemptuously as she sank onto her small bed, slipped off her shoes and began to put on her other, softer slippers meant for dancing.

“Henry, is it? Does he call you Mary as well?”

“His affection for me is far from the foul things you have with men. We pray together and study, which is well beyond what a Catholic hypocrite like you would do. One who is bent on whoring herself for the family name at court. Although if you ever accuse me of speaking this way to you I shall deny it.”

“We pray to the same God as reformers, Mary, just perhaps less critically. And you may wish to watch your tongue. I might be in a position one day to help you instead of being the rival you see me as.”

“Help me off a bridge, no doubt. You fought me for Henry’s heart, then Francis’s, and won them both with your body, without truly wanting either. I would not trust you with anything I valued.”

Catherine lifted her chin. “As you like. But never say I did not offer a truce.”

“Oh, I shall never forget any of the words you have spoken to me—and others. You can be quite certain of that. Your face, your voice, and your choices are all etched into my mind forever.”

Catherine looked at the plain-faced servant appraisingly then. “Apparently you do not read your Bible so well as you claim or you would know the Lord’s commandment against envy.”

“Trust me, Mistress Howard, you would be the last person I would envy.”

She stood and brushed past Mary on her way to the door. “I wonder if Henry Manox would say the same thing once he knew you were in love with him and working against me while he was in love with me. Perhaps you should tell him the truth of your mortal affection for him the next time you are praying together, since that is all you have managed to get him to do with you?” Catherine said.

She paused for only a moment, then went out into the corridor without looking back. Just as she was with Henry Manox and Francis Dereham, she was relieved to be leaving Mary Lassells, who knew all of the things Catherine had done with men in the darkness of the dormitory and the music room—stories that could quite easily ruin Catherine’s life.

As promised, a beautiful and very fashionable French hood arrived two days after the Duke of Norfolk’s visit to Horsham. It was delivered along with a summons. Catherine was requested at court to attend the new queen in her household as one of the noble maids of honor. Immediately, everyone at Horsham began to look at the young girl who had slept with the servants with different eyes.

With Katherine Tilney, Mary Lassells and Joan Acworth attending her, Catherine sat on the edge of her bed with nothing to do for the first time in her life. She was not allowed to help her old friends pack her own trunks. Silently, she gazed at the clothing and belongings strewn around the dormitory. These things before her were the sum total of her life so far. There were two dresses once belonging to her elder sister, Margaret, who was Lady Arundel; a chemise and stockings of her own; the pair of shoes for dancing, worn through at the toes; and in the center of things, like a crown, the new French hood.

It was blue velvet lined with silk and dotted with real pearls.
The absurdity of its elegance amid her worn things was bittersweet, she thought on a sigh.

But Catherine knew perfectly well why she was being spirited away to court: She would be trotted out like a fat, delectable Christmas goose, to be given over to whomever her family chose for her. She had heard how every worthy courtier patterned his behavior on the king’s own. Having had four wives, and a string of mistresses, King Henry had a reputation that escaped no one in England or beyond. In spite of his middle age and how stout he had become at forty-nine, she had heard that he was still athletic, and still a powerful magnet for every girl who met him. At least, that was what she had been told.