The Taming of the Queen (27 page)

My eyes rest on the clear profile of Thomas Seymour. ‘You have them to the life,’ I say unsteadily. ‘May I have a copy of this?’

‘It is a very good likeness of the king.’ He is pleased. ‘Take it, take this one, Your Majesty. I have another made fair for the glass cutter. And here is the moment when the walls fall. It’s a great moment. Like Jericho for Joshua.’

‘Yes,’ I say. I wonder if I am safe to keep the picture of Thomas. The king is at the very centre of the design, Thomas’s beloved profile half-hidden at the back. Nobody looking at the picture could guess that I wanted it for the tiny glimpse of him. I could keep it safely hidden away, with my study books, with the manuscript of the psalms that I have translated. I could keep it tucked inside my Bible. Nobody would know that I long to see his face when I open the page.

Hone shows me the other designs he has made. They will be a sequence, telling the story of the invasion of France, the alliance with Spain, and the triumphant siege. The window for the chapel is one of thanksgiving and celebration. An angel blesses the campaign, the king rides home under an arch of laurel leaves, angels look down on him.

‘I’ll have it ready for when the king arrives,’ he promises me. ‘I go to Kent tomorrow with the pieces of glass and we will lead them in place there, for fear of breakages. We will be ready. The lead will be cooling as he enters, but we will be ready.’

I let him gather up his papers and prepare to bow. I push back the portrait of Thomas Seymour with the other designs.

‘Did you not want this, Your Majesty? Shall I get it framed for you?’

‘It’s of no matter. I’ll wait till I can see the real thing in glass,’ I say indifferently. Katherine Howard went to the gallows on the evidence of one note that she wrote to Thomas Culpepper in her silly childish little hand, misspelled, with a tear blot, asking if he was well. I don’t dare to have anything that could ever be cited against me. I don’t even dare to keep a charcoal sketch of his profile half-hidden at the back of a crowd. Not even that.

The king’s arrival at his castle is staged like a masque. It is all for show. The steward of his household and the master of horse have arranged all the details with my stewards and we have our places as precisely as if we were learning a dance. At eight o’clock the grateful people of Kent start to assemble on either side of the road leading to the castle and the first yeomen of the guard take their posts along the road to hold back the wildly excited crowd, or, in the case of their not being wildly excited, to lead the cheers and command applause.

The gardeners and builders have erected triumphal arches with boughs of bay and laurel, the trumpeters are positioned on the turrets of the castle and the musicians ready at the entrance. We can hear the hammering hooves of the outliers and then those in the first rank, and now I can see, from where I stand at the gateway of the castle with Mary and Elizabeth on one side, Edward on the other, the rippling standards of the royal party and the great flag of England coming on.

It is impossible to miss the king. He looks magnificent in his black Italian armour, his enormous warhorse in matching metal, the biggest horse in the rank, the rider towering above the rest: bigger, brighter, higher than any other on the road. People do cheer, quite spontaneously, and the king turns his head and smiles to one side and another, and behind him his almoner throws coins to encourage the enthusiasm.

I am nervous. The procession with ambassadors, noblemen, supporters and the cream of the army comes slowly forward, the beautiful horses tossing their heads and blowing, the archers with their bows across their backs, the infantry in newly clean jackets, some sporting battered helmets, and at the head of them, always drawing the eye, the great king.

He pulls up his horse and four men run to their appointed places to get him out of the saddle. A wheeled platform is brought to the side of the horse, he is helped down and steadied where he stands. He turns, and waves to me. The crowd cheer, the soldiers leading the applause, and then the four men guide him down the steps to the ground.

His squires come forward and unstrap his cuisses and the rerebrace from his arms, but he keeps on his breastplate and holds his helmet under his arm for the warlike look of it. I keep my eyes fixed adoringly on him. Somewhere, Thomas is on his horse, watching me.

One page gets one side of him and one the other, but he does not lean on them to walk. Even now, at the moment of our greeting I know that I must not approach him; he will come to me. He walks towards me and I see that the men are lined up so that they can see our greeting. The king comes closer and closer, and I and all my household, sink into low deferential curtseys. His children bow almost to the ground. At once I feel his hand under my elbow, raising me up, and he turns and, in sight of everyone, kisses me passionately on the mouth.

I guard my expression. There must not be the smallest flinch from this stale wet kiss. The king turns his back to me to face his army. ‘I have led you out, and I have led you home!’ he bellows. ‘I have brought you back in honour. We have come back in triumph.’

There is a roar of approval from his men and, peeping around him, I find I am smiling at their excitement. It is impossible not to be caught up in their joy in their victory. It is a triumph, a great triumph, that they have reclaimed English lands in France; they have shown the power and might of our King Henry, and they have come home with a victory.

We sit, side by side, before the altar at Leeds Castle chapel in special low chairs which give the appearance of our devoutly kneeling. Behind us the children have their heads reverently bowed. The king prays earnestly for a few moments and then gently touches my hand to get my attention. ‘And Edward is well?’ he says.

Before us, the priest faces the altar and blesses the bread and the wine, the choir’s voices soar into their celebratory anthem. I turn my attention from my prayers to my husband; from the sacred to the profane. Not for the first time I wonder if Henry can really believe that a miracle is taking place: the wine becoming holy blood, the bread becoming the body of Christ, since he turns his head and talks to his friends while the sacred act is taking place. Does he really think that a true miracle happens before him every day? And if so, why would he ignore it?

‘As you see. He is well. And your daughters.’

‘You said there was plague?’

‘We went on progress and avoided all signs of it. It’s over now.’

‘I have secured his inheritance in France. Another city under English control. And we will gain more. This is just our foothold.’

‘It has been a wonderful campaign,’ I say enthusiastically.

He nods. He closes his eyes as the priest approaches and folds his big hands together like a child at prayer. His rosebud mouth opens, his big tongue rolls out as he takes the sacred bread into his mouth and swallows it in one great gulp. The server comes with the goblet and whispers: ‘
Sanguis autem Christi
.’

‘Amen,’ the king confirms, and takes the goblet and tips it and drinks deep.

They come to me. In the sacred silence as the priest holds up the wafer before me, I whisper in my heart: ‘Thank you, Lord, for preserving the king from the many dangers of war.’ The holy wafer is heavy and thick in my mouth. I swallow as the priest comes towards me with the goblet of wine. ‘And keep Thomas Seymour under your protection and in your grace,’ I finish my secret prayer. ‘God bless Thomas.’

The royal kitchens excel themselves with the victory feast. We sit down to dinner after Mass at ten in the morning and I think we will never stop eating. One great dish after another marches out of the kitchens, carried shoulder-high through the court: great golden platters piled high with meat or fish or fowl, golden bowls of stews and sauces, trays with pastries, massive constructions of pies. The centrepiece of the feast is a roast within a roast, a bird stuffed and packed into another bird: lark into mistle thrush into chicken. Chicken into goose, goose into peacock, peacock into swan and the whole thing encased in a castle of pastry wondrously made into a model of Boulogne. The court cheers and everyone hammers their knives on the tables as four men bear the pie on a massive tray through the hall to the king, and set it on a trestle before him. The choir in the gallery above the great hall sing an anthem of victory, and the king, sweating and exhausted by the marathon feast, beams with pleasure.

My clockmaker has made a miniature cannon of clockwork, and now Will Somers, prancing and leaping under the standard of Saint George, wheels it into the hall on its own little carriage. With enormous comedy, while people cheer and shout encouragement, Will approaches the tiny gold cannon with a little candle, pretends to shrink from it in terror, and finally enacts the lighting of the fuse.

Skilfully he touches a hidden button, and the little cannon spits a flame and ejects a ball with a bang towards the pastry walls of the pie castle. It is weighted, it is well-aimed: the tower crumbles under the attack, and there is a roar of applause.

The king is delighted. He hauls himself to his feet. ‘
Henricus vincit!
’ he bellows, and the whole court shouts back at him, ‘Hail! Caesar! Hail! Caesar!’

I smile and applaud. I dare not look across to the table of the lords, where Thomas will be observing this ecstatic greeting of a meat pie. Unseen, I pinch my fingertips to remind myself not to sneer. The court is right to celebrate, the king is right to revel in his triumph. It is my place to show delight, and besides, in my heart I am proud of him. I rise to my feet and raise my glass in a toast to the king. The whole court follows me. Henry stands, swaying slightly, taking in the adulation of his wife, of his daughters, of his people. I don’t look at Thomas.

Dinner goes on and on. After everyone has had a slice of the pie castle and eaten all the rest of the meat and the fish, in come the sweetmeats and the puddings, serving after serving of sugar maps of France and marchpane models of the king’s war courser. Fruit, dried and stewed, comes in pies and sugar baskets and great bowls. The voider course of dried fruits and nuts is placed on every table and sweet wines from Portugal are brought in for those who can bear to go on drinking and eating.