The Taming of the Queen (34 page)

I see Mary coming towards us, through the garden, her ladies behind her, and I can see by the way she holds the crucifix on the rosary at her belt that she is nerving herself to say goodbye to this man who has been like a father to her. Indeed, he has been more of a father than the king ever was. He loved and served her mother and he loved and served her. Perhaps she thought he would never leave.

‘I will let you say goodbye to the princess alone,’ I say gently. ‘She will be so sad to see you go. She has trusted you for good advice since she was a very little girl. You are one of the few . . .’ I mean to say that he is one of a very few faithful friends to her; but as I speak I am suddenly aware that she had many friends, and many of them have died. He is one of the few that has survived. Almost everyone who loved Mary was put to death by her father. There are tears in his dark eyes. ‘You are generous to let us be alone together,’ he says, his old voice trembling. ‘I have loved her since she was a little girl. It has been an honour to advise her. I wish I could have—’ He breaks off. ‘I could not serve her as I hoped,’ he says. ‘I did not keep her mother safe, nor her.’

‘They were difficult times,’ I say diplomatically. ‘But no-one could doubt your devotion.’

He hauls himself to his feet as Princess Mary comes near. ‘I shall pray for you, Your Majesty,’ he says quietly. ‘I shall pray for your safety.’

It is such a strange remark from the ambassador who could not save his own queen that I hesitate before beckoning Mary forward. ‘Oh, but I’m safe, thank you Ambassador,’ I say. ‘The king made me Regent General; he trusts me. You can have every confidence, Princess Mary is safe in my keeping. You can leave her without fear. I am Queen of England and her mother. I will keep her safe.’

Ambassador Chapuys looks at me as if he pities me. He has seen five queens take their place at the side of the king since his own Infanta from Spain. ‘It is you I am afraid for,’ he says shortly.

I give a little laugh. ‘I would do nothing to offend the king,’ I say. ‘And he loves me.’

He bows. ‘My queen, Katherine of Aragon, did nothing to offend him,’ he says gently. I realise that for him Henry has only ever really had one queen: the first and only Queen Katherine. ‘And he loved her deeply and truly. Until the moment that he stopped loving her. And then nothing would ease his discomfort but her death.’

Despite the sunshine in the garden I am suddenly cold. ‘But what could I do?’ I ask.

I mean – what does he imagine can go wrong, what could I possibly do that would offend the king so badly that he would put me aside, as he put Katherine of Aragon aside, imprisoned her in a cold distant castle and let her die of neglect? But the old man misunderstands me. He thinks I mean what could I do to escape, and his answer is chilling: ‘Majesty, when you lose his favour, when you get your first hint of it, I pray you leave the country at once,’ he says quietly. ‘He will not annul another marriage. He has outgrown that; he could not bear the shame of it. All of Christendom would laugh at him and he could not bear that. When he is tired of you he will end it with your death.’

‘Ambassador!’ I exclaim.

He nods his grey head. ‘These are the last words I will ever say to you, Your Majesty. They are a warning from an old man with nothing to lose. Death is the king’s preference now. He is not driven to it. I have known kings forced to execute their friends or loved ones; but he is not one of them.’ He pauses. ‘He likes finality. He likes to turn against someone and know they are dead the next day. He likes to know that he has that power. If you lose his favour, Your Majesty, please make sure you get away.’

I cannot reply.

He shakes his head. ‘My greatest regret, my greatest failure, was that we did not get my queen away,’ he says softly.

My ladies are watching me. I move my hand in a little gesture to invite Princess Mary to join us and I step aside to allow them time to speak together in private. By her suddenly guarded expression I think he is warning her, as he just warned me. This is a man who has observed the king for sixteen years, who has studied him and seen him grow in his power, observed the advisors who disagreed with him dragged to the Tower and executed, watched the wives who displeased him exiled from court or executed, known the innocent men of small rebellions hanged in their thousands in chains. I feel a shudder down my spine, as if my tingling skin knows of a danger that I cannot name, and I shake my head, and walk away.

George Day, my almoner, comes to my privy chamber as I am reading with my ladies, with a wrapped parcel under his arm. I know at once what he has for me and I step to the bay of the window, with Rig trotting at my heels, so that he can unwrap the book and show it to me.

‘
Prayers Stirring the Mind to Heavenly Meditations
,’ I read, tracing the title on its inner page. ‘It is done.’

‘It is, Your Majesty. It looks very fair.’

I open the first pages and there is my name as the editor,
Princess Katherine, Queen of England
. I draw a breath.

‘The king himself approved the wording,’ George Day says quietly. ‘Thomas Cranmer took it to him and told him that it was a fine translation of the old prayers, that would be read alongside the Litany. You have given the English an English prayer book, Your Majesty.’

‘He does not object to my name being on it?’

‘He does not.’

I trace my name with a fingertip. ‘It feels almost too much for me.’

‘It is God’s work,’ he assures me. ‘And also . . .’ I smile. ‘What?’

‘It’s good, Your Majesty. It is a good piece of work.’

The king returns to health as the summer comes, looking forward to his annual progress down the beautiful valley of the Thames, and he walks from his room in Nonsuch Palace, through the private gallery to my rooms with only two pages and Doctor Butts to accompany him. Nan warns me that he is on his way, and I seat myself at the fireside reading, beautifully dressed in my best nightgown and with my hair in a plait under a dark net.

The pages tap on the door, the guards throw it open, Doctor Butts bows low at the threshold, and the king enters. I rise from my seat at the fireside and curtsey.

‘I am so glad to see you, my lord husband.’

‘It’s about time,’ he says shortly. ‘I did not marry you to spend my nights alone.’

From the shuttered expression on Doctor Butts’ face I guess that he advised the king against struggling through the passages to my room, and staying here. Without speaking he goes to the table before the fireplace and prepares a draught for the king.

‘Is that a sleeping draught?’ Henry demands irritably. ‘I don’t want one. I haven’t come here to sleep, you fool.’

‘Your Majesty should not overexert—’

‘I’m not going to.’

‘This is just to keep your fever down,’ the doctor replies. ‘You are heated, Your Majesty. You will heat up the queen’s bed.’

He strikes just the right note. Henry chuckles. ‘Should you like me in your bed instead of a warming pan, Kateryn?’

‘You are a much warmer bedfellow than Joan Denny,’ I smile. ‘She has cold feet. I shall be glad to have you in my bed, my lord.’

‘You see,’ Henry says triumphantly to William Butts. ‘I shall tell Sir Anthony I am a better bedfellow than his wife.’ He laughs. ‘Get me into bed,’ he says to the pages.

Together they push him up onto the footstool before the bed, and then, as he sits back, they go either side of the bed; one of them has to stand on the covers to heave him up to sit upright so that he can breathe, propped by the pillows and the bolster. Gently, they lift his thick wounded leg into bed and then the other beside it. Tenderly, they drape the sheets and the blankets over him, and step back to see that he is comfortable. I have the disturbing thought that they are admiring him as if he were the enormous wax effigy of his corpse which must one day be placed on his coffin.

‘Good enough,’ he says shortly. ‘You can go.’

Doctor Butts brings the little medicine glass to the king and he swallows it in one.

‘Is there anything else you need to make you more comfortable?’ the doctor asks.

‘New legs,’ Henry says wryly.

‘I wish to God I could give you them, Your Majesty.’

‘I know, I know, you can leave us.’

They go out through my privy chamber, closing the door behind them. I hear the guard at the outer door of the presence chamber ground his pike on the stone floor in salute to the doctor, and then it is quiet, but for the crackle of the fire in the fireplace and the hoot of an owl, out in the dark trees of the garden. From somewhere, perhaps beyond the hawks’ mews, I can hear the distant pipe of a flute for dancing.

‘What are you listening for?’ the king asks me.

‘I heard an ullet.’

‘A what?’

I shake my head. ‘An owl. I meant an owl. We call them ullets in the North.’

‘D’you miss your home?’

‘No, I am so happy here.’

This is the right answer. He gestures that I am to come to bed beside him, and I kneel briefly before my prie-dieu, then take off my robe and slip between the sheets in my nightgown. Wordlessly, he tweaks at the fine lawn of my gown and gestures that I should straddle him. I make sure that I am smiling as I go astride him, and I lower myself gently onto him. There is nothing there. Feeling a little foolish I glance down to make sure that I am in the right place, but I can feel nothing. I make sure that my smile does not waver and, slowly, I undo the top ribbon of my nightgown. Always I have to balance my actions so that I do not seem wanton – like Kitty Howard – but I do enough to please him. He gets hold of my hips in an unkind grip and draws me downwards, grinding me against him, trying to thrust himself upwards. His legs are too weak to take his weight, he cannot arch his back, he can do nothing but flounder. I can see his colour and his temper rising, and I make sure I am still smiling. I widen my eyes and I take little shallow breaths as if I am aroused. I start to pant.

‘It’s no good,’ he says shortly.

I pause, uncertainly.

‘It’s not my fault,’ he insists. ‘It’s this fever. It has unmanned me.’

I dismount with as much ease as I can manage, but I feel painfully awkward as if I were getting gracelessly off a fat cob. ‘I am sure it’s nothing. . .’

‘Yes, yes,’ he says. ‘It’s the fault of that damned doctor. The physic he gives me would castrate a horse.’

I giggle at the phrase, then I see his face and realise he is not joking. He really does think himself as strong as a stallion, only rendered impotent by a draught against fever.

‘Get us something to eat,’ he says. ‘At least we can dine.’

I slip from the bed and go to the cupboard. There are pastries and some fruit.

‘For God’s sake! More than that.’

I ring the bell and Elizabeth Tyrwhit my cousin comes and curtseys low when she sees the king in my bed. ‘Your Majesty,’ she says.

‘The king is hungry,’ I tell her. ‘Bring us some pastries and some wine, some meats and some cheeses and some sweet things.’

She bows and goes, I hear her waking a page and sending him running to the kitchens. One of the cooks has to sleep there, in a truckle bed, waiting for a night-time demand from the king’s rooms. The king likes great meals in the middle of the night as well as the two big feasts of the day, and often stirs in his rest and wants a pudding to soothe him back to sleep again.

‘We’ll go to the coast next week,’ he tells me. ‘I have been waiting for months to be well enough to ride.’

I exclaim in pleasure.

‘I want to see what Tom Seymour has left of my navy,’ he says. ‘And they say the French are massing in their ports. They are likely to raid. I want to see my castles.’

I am sure he will see the rapid pulse in the hollow of my bare neck at the thought of seeing Thomas. ‘Is it not dangerous?’ I ask. ‘If the French are coming?’

‘Yes,’ he says with pleasure. ‘We might even see some action.’

‘There might be a battle?’ My voice is perfectly steady.

‘I hope so. I did not refit the
Mary Rose
for her to sit in harbour. She is my great weapon, my secret weapon. D’you know how many guns I have on her now?’